


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

©fystjt. f/fo Clt|i!iri^|l 1)o. 

Shelf-time 

o 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 


























































* 
























Old Portmanteau. 

Page 12. 


9 







Old Portmanteau. 



KATE W. HAMILTON, 

it 

AUTHOR OP 

CHINKS OF CLANNYFORD,” “ WE THREE,” “GREYCLIFF,” ETC., ETC. 




PHILADELPHIA : 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 187 8, by 
THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 


2Jf3 


Westcott & Thomson, 

Stereotypers and Electrotypers, Pliilada. 


n scribed Affectionately 


TO 

Lila and Katie. 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Portmanteau and Story open Together 7 

CHAPTER H. 

Emily’s Folks 26 

CHAPTER III. 

Two Seed-sowings 44 

CHAPTER IV. 

A Harvest of Wild Oats * 59 

CHAPTER V. 

Right About Face 72 

CHAPTER VI. 

Under Sentence 90 

CHAPTER VII. 

Faithful unto Death 107 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Joe’s Cross-roads 120 

5 


6 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER IX. 

PAGK 

A Night and a Morning 

CHAPTER X.. 

Teaching and Learning.. 149 

CHAPTER XL 

Brother and Sister 164 

CHAPTER XII. 

Bolts and Bars 182 

CHAPTER XIII. 

At Lizzie’s School 195 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Change of Programme 211 

CHAPTER XV. 

Opening Doors 228 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Changes and Letters 243 

CHAPTER XVII. 

What the Years Unfolded 263 


Old Portmanteau. 


CHAPTER I. 

PORTMANTEAU AND STORY OPEN TOGETHER. 

Aj the winter afternoon the sky had been 
clouded, but it grew grayer and colder still 
toward nightfall. Joe watched it in his 
hurried journeys between the house and 
barn, and closed stable doors and looked 
after his poultry with extra cautiom Straggling 
snowflakes began to fall and a cold' wind swept up 
from the river before his work was done, reddening 
his ears and fingers; but he paused on the back 
steps with his last armful of wood for a final sur- 
vey, of the sky. 

“ Shouldn’t wonder if we had a regular old 
bluster to-night,” he observed as he entered. 

“ Well, close the shutters and we’re snug enough/’ 
responded old Mr. Vance from his arm-chair. 

“ Snug enough ” the great kitchen certainly 
looked with the polished cooking-stove and com- 
fortable tea-table at one end of the room, while at 
the other a cheerful fire blazed in an old-fashioned 



8 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


fireplace. "Now and Then” the family had 
merrily christened the opposite extremities of the 
long apartment ; and while they rallied to the 
modern part for supper, they were sure to gather 
in the old-time corner afterward to enjoy the open 
blaze. 

Joe’s prediction was verified as the darkness 
gathered. Wilder and fiercer the wind grew, 
beating upon the windows, rattling the doors, 
sweeping in wild gusts around the house, and 
retreating in long mournful sighs. 

“Hear it howl?” questioned Master Benny, with 
his small inquisitive nose flattened against the glass 
in his efforts to peer into the outer world. “Walks 
are all white with snow, too. I like a storm ’cause 
it feels so good to keep out of it.” 

“ I wish you liked mischief the same way,” said 
his mother, disconsolately. “There’s that apron 
all torn down the back. I don’t know but we 
shall have to keep Miss Prudy all the year 
round.” 

Miss Prudy smiled — her mild, meaningless little 
smile, that, like her thimble, was at everybody’s 
service. She was sewing at the farmhouse, and 
there was a quilt on the frames over which she had 
been busy all day ; but she could not quilt well by 
lamplight, and in the interval between that and 
seeking other employment she had drawn her chair 
to the hearth, and was holding her brown, needle- 
roughened fingers to the blaze. Light hair, light 


PORTMANTEAU AND STORY OPEN. 9 


eyes, light figure and a general air of uncertainty 
constituted all of Miss Prudy that was describable. 

“ Looks as if she’d been sort of flimsy goods to 
start with, and had faded and shrunk up in the 
wear and wash,” thought Joe, studying her with 
his keen, bright eyes. 

Miss Prudy looked up and met the glance, smiled 
again, and repeated the appropriate little remark 
she had used in all the storms since she could re- 
member ; having once grown crooked, she never 
could straighten it: 

“ Mercy to have a roof and fire over a body’s 
head such times ! There’s them as hasn’t.” 

Miss Prudy mentioned the latter unfortunate 
class very cheerfully, and no vision of them seem- 
ed to disturb any one’s comfort as, supper over, the 
family gradually settled to their evening avoca- 
tions. Mrs. Vance drew out a small work-table, 
and she and her seamstress seated themselves near 
it with a basket of sewing between them. Mr. 
Vance sank back into his easy-chair and news- 
paper, while Joe, on a low seat near the fire, busied 
himself with whittling. A very wonderful and in- 
tricate piece of whittling it must have been if it 
occupied all his thoughts, for he paused at intervals 
for long reveries with his eyes fixed upon the glow- 
ing coals. The children, Teddy, Kip and Sis, 
had discovered rare facilities for a robber’s cave 
under the quilt Miss Prudy had deserted, and from 
that dark retreat they pounced forth upon inolfen- 


10 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


sive travelers with a vigor that aroused the local 
authorities into uttering an occasional “ Hush ! 
hush !” 

Suddenly, in one of the brief lulls of the storm, 
Miss Prudy dropped her work with a startled look. 

“ I thought I heard — ” she began ; but her sen- 
tence was broken by a long, loud summons upon the 
seldom-used brass knocker of the front door. 

“ Oh my !” cried Miss Prudy again, with an odd 
blending of curiosity and alarm in her pale eyes. 
“ Whoever? On such a night, too !” 

The robbers disbanded with remarkable rapid- 
ity, nearly overturning their cave in their desper- 
ate hurry to forsake it, and Sis established herself 
in close proximity to her mother. 

“Take a light, Joseph,” said the farmer as the 
boy arose. 

Joe obeyed, and made his way through the long 
hall, but not before the knock had been repeated. 
Teddy, listening eagerly, caught only a murmur of 
voices at the door and a stamping of snow from 
feet in the hall, and then Joe returned, ushering in 
a tall, bent figure enveloped in a long cloak and 
carrying an old black portmanteau. 

“ A — Somebody who wants to stay all night, 
sir,” said Joe, hesitating a little as to his form of 
introduction. 

No very cordial gleam of welcome lighted up 
the faces at the fire. Mrs. Vance was suspicious 
of traveling strangers, and thought apprehensively 


PORTMANTEAU AND STORY OPEN. * 11 

of her last gift from town — a silver cake-basket. 
But no one could be refused shelter from such a 
storm ; she accepted that fact at once ; and the 
farmer said, 

“ Ah ? Yes, we must find room. It’s a bad night 
to be out, surely. Did you lose your way in it ?” 

“ No. Oh no !” The stranger dropped into the 
chair Joe placed for him, and throwing off his cloak 
reached his benumbed fingers toward the blaze. 
“ Not lost, but the snow, you see, and wind. It’s 
a terrible storm,” he observed, gravely, as if im- 
parting a piece of information, and looking out 
from under his shaggy gray brows with a pair of 
dark, bright, restless eyes. 

“ Traveling, eh ? And intended to reach some 
place near here, I suppose?” suggested Mr. Vance, 
inquiringly. 

“Not far — no, not near, though. The next 
town, I suppose,” answered the stranger, absently, 
rubbing his purple hands together. “ Or perhaps 
there’s a village nearer ? I don’t know the dis- 
tance; I’m new to this route.” 

“ A bad time of year — and of night — to be bound 
for nowhere in particular,” said the farmer, dryly. 

“ Yes, but I’m used to it. One can get used to 
’most everything,” was the serious reply. 

It occurred to Mrs. Vance that she should find 
it very difficult, not to say uncomfortable, to get 
used to a stranger in her house who refused to 
give any account of himself or his coming, and 


12 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


she and her husband exchanged a dissatisfied 
glance. The guest raised his eyes, caught the 
look, and seemed to comprehend it, for he start- 
ed a little and said quickly, laying his hand on 
the old portmanteau, 

“ I’ve books, you see, to sell and dispose of, so I 
travel here and there. It don’t make much differ- 
ence what way so it’s a new way, and I don’t al- 
ways know just where I am until I come to some 
town.” 

“ Oh ! A book-peddler!” and Mr. Vance’s in- 
vestigation ended suddenly in a tone of mingled 
satisfaction and good-natured contempt, while Mrs. 
Vance uttered a sigh of relief. 

Heeding neither tone nor sigh, the man’s glance 
fixed itself on the glowing coals again. Having 
secured shelter and warmth, he seemed to feel no 
curiosity concerning his surroundings or his hosts, 
nor, indeed, to notice that no hospitable welcome 
had been extended to him. 

Mrs. Vance was really kind-hearted, however, 
and felt, besides, something like gratitude toward 
the stranger for not proving a dangerous character ; 
so, after another survey of the spare, rather thinly- 
clad form, she exclaimed, as if the remark were a 
sequel to her thoughts, 

“ And it’s mostly traveling on foot, I fancy, and 
you’re not likely to have stopped anywhere for 
supper this night. Why, you must be hungry as 
well as cold. I’ll have you a cup of hot coffee in 


PORTMANTEAU AND STORY OPEN. 13 


a minute; that’s so good when one’s thoroughly 
chilled.” 

She hurried away without waiting for the mur- 
mured thanks or the grateful look that flashed for 
a moment into the dark eyes. The cup of coffee 
resolved itself into a substantial supper comfortably 
spread upon the table near the stove. Then, her 
housewifely conscience satisfied and her first vague 
fears dispelled, Mrs. Vance dropped the stranger 
from her mind and returned to her sewing with 
only the parting injunction, 

“ You wait on him, Joseph, and see if he needs 
anything more. It is time for me to be at my 
work.” 

Joe’s duties at the farm were varied and numer- 
ous. He was expected to keep a watchful eye on 
nearly all needs, in doors and out, and to supply 
them, too, with prompt hands and ready feet. It 
was not that the family were exacting or oppres- 
sive, but only that Joe was so wide awake, skillful 
and heartily interested in everything that much was 
naturally left to his care. What the careless ones 
forgot and the tired or idle ones neglected, they 
consoled themselves concerning it with the house- 
hold phrase, “ Joe’ll see to it.” Sometimes the 
boy privately signed his name in chalk on the barn 
door as “ Joseph Kenyon, General Manager, F. G. 
and T. L. E.” the mysterious letters standing for 
“ Filler of Gaps and Tier-up of Loose Ends;” 
but nevertheless Joe filled his position with good- 


14 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


natured cheerfulness, and did not know a hard- 
ship when he met one. 

The present service was quite to his mind. He 
was interested in the odd-looking guest whom he 
had ushered in, and was longing for a chance to 
talk with him, so he moved to the table with alac- 
rity; and seeing the others were occupied again, he 
passed a plate of ham and opened conversation at 
once : 

“ Been traveling far to-day, sir ?” 

“ All day — yes,” the stranger answered, slowly. 

“ Must have come through a good deal of wind 
and snow, then ?” 

“A good deal — yes, I’ve come through a good 
deal in my time.” The reply was given absently, 
as if more to his own thoughts than to any words 
of his questioner. 

Joe stared : 

“ You’re generally out, then, through stormy 
weather ?” 

“ Stormy ? Yes, years of storms.” 

Joe pursed up his lips, but recalled his politeness 
in time to suppress a whistle, and only observed, 

“Well, Fve seen some pretty long spells of 
tough weather myself, but none quite so long as 
that, in this region of country. I shouldn’t won- 
der if you went ’most everywhere, though ?” 

“ Everywhere. ‘ Sowing beside all waters.’ ” 

Joe’s bright eyes grew round : 

“Ihis time of year? Should think you’d find 


PORTMANTEAU AND STORY OPEN. 15 


the ground frozen too hard for that — hereabouts, 
anyhow.” 

“Frozen it is,” said the stranger, sadly — “hard, 
careless and indifferent to the whole subject gene- 
rally, unless the great sorrow has ploughed a place 
for it.” 

“ O-h-h !” A look of comprehension flashed 
into Joe’s eyes. “You mean that sort of thing? — 
religion? I thought you meant sowing seed in 
real earnest.” 

“ Ay, that is what religion should make us do, 
boy — sow in real earnest.” 

“ Well, I don’t know.” Joe glanced toward the 
opposite fireplace and lowered his voice confiden- 
tially. “ I can’t rightly tell whether it ought to or 
not. Seems to me a good many folks have the 
same idea about religion as they have about the 
small-pox — to take it light as they can and be 
careful it don’t mark ’em so’s anybody’ll notice 
it.” 

“ 1 As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they 
are the sons of God’ — only they,” answered the 
stranger, impressively. 

“And you say they ’most always have great sor- 
row first?” pursued Joe, curiously. 

“ Oh !” The man started slightly as he recalled 
his words. “ I meant on this subject,” pointing to 
the old portmanteau, that he had deposited near 
him. “Temperance. I’ve books on that subject 
to sell and to give away — tracts, stories, lectures, 


16 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


medical arguments, anything to interest, warn, and 
save if possible.” 

His eyes lost their restlessness and his manner 
its strangeness and abstraction as soon as he spoke 
of his work. He had finished his supper, and 
turned his chair from the table and toward the 
stove. Joe was becoming interested, and his busy 
brain was conjuring up a host of questions, when 
the children edged up to the stove. They had 
been holding a whispered consultation concerning 
the possible character of the visitor and the prob- 
able wonders contained in his baggage, and a sug- 
gestion from Teddy that “ maybe he might have 
’Laddin’s lamp,” together with the safety promised 
by Joe’s presence, induced them to draw near. 

“ Do you got any lamps in your trunk ?” inquired 
Sis, her hands behind her and her face very solemn, 
as befitted the hazardous undertaking in which she 
was engaged, while Kip and Teddy were ranged in 
single file at her back, regarding her boldness with 
mingled awe and admiration. 

“ Lamps? No. It may bring light to some, 
but that is all.” 

Sis cast a disappointed glance over her shoul- 
der, and then, recalling another of Kip’s “ may- 
bes,” ventured a second query : 

“Do you be Jack the Giant-killer, or any- 
body ?” 

The stranger did not smile ; he seemed to con- 
sider the question as gravely as it was put : 


PORTMANTEAU AND STORY OPEN. 17 


“ Perhaps. Yes, that is what I am trying to do 
— kill a giant.” 

“ Mister, could you tell us about one?” asked 
Teddy, his desire to hear the wonderful adventures 
overcoming his timidity. 

“ Tell you ? Oh yes ! I hope he’ll never attack 
you, child ; he is a fearful giant.” 

“Does he live anywhere about here?” asked 
Teddy, with an apppehensive glance toward the 
windows. 

“ He travels everywhere. No home so rich that 
he dare not make his way into it — no home so poor 
that he cannot find it out ; and where he enters, all 
comfort and happiness go — all safety.” 

“Do he kill folks?” asked Sis, her two flaxen 
braids standing out almost straight from her head 
as she bent forward in her eager listening. 

“Ay, indeed! With the worst of deaths, little 
girl — with a double death.” 

“Don’t b’lieve it,” said Kip, stoutly. “Cats 
have nine lives ; folks don’t have but one.” 

“ Hush J” interposed Teddy ; “ I want to hear. — 
Did he ever come to your house?” 

“Yes; he killed nearly all our family. He met 
my father first, and hurt his head so that he didn’t 
know what he was about. He used to come home 
with him and abuse my mother and beat the chil- 
dren, and sometimes, in cold nights, he drove us all 
out of the house. He kept my father from work, 
so that he earned no money for us ; he took away 
2 


18 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


our good clothes and left us only rags to wear. 
Sometimes we were without food and fuel because 
that cruel giant had to be supported. My poor 
mother worked night and day to keep us from 
want, but oftentimes he stole even her hard earn- 
ings or made her give up a part of them. It was 
dreadful ! My father tried to fight him sometimes, 
but the giant seemed to have taken all his strength. 
Now and then he thought he was rid of him, but 
he always came back again ; and at last, when the 
giant had made him crazy one day, my father took 
his own life. 

“ But the giant had hold of my eldest brother 
by that time, and it was the same thing over again. 
My little sister was killed by cold and neglect, and 
my poor mother died broken-hearted. The giant 
did it all. He hurt me also. The strangest part 
of it is that no one knows him for an enemy and 
giant until he begins to feel his iron fingers. He 
left me wrong here.” The stranger tapped his fore- 
head. “ I was in a hospital — an asylum — for a 
long time ; and now I hate him, and travel about 
warning every one against him.” 

Joe noticed that as the speaker’s tones had grown 
louder and more earnest the talk by the fireplace 
had ceased and Mr. Vance had dropped his paper; 
but the stranger sat with his back toward them, and 
seemed scarcely to see even his youthful listeners. 

“ Ho you s’pose he’s alive yet ?” questioned Kip. 
iC Christopher ” he had been grandly christened, but 


PORTMANTEAU AND STORY OPEN. 19 


“Kip” was all that constant use had left of the 
name. 

“Yes, I see his work everywhere. He is burn- 
ing houses, filling prisons, wrecking ships and rail- 
road trains, murdering souls, Suffering, tears and 
death wherever he goes! How long? how long?” 
The last words were a mournful monotone not un- 
like the wailing of the storm without. 

“Children, it’s time you were in bed, every one 
of you !” exclaimed Mrs. Vance with sudden sharp- 
ness of tone and manner, rising from her seat and 
taking up a lamp. 

The stranger started as if abruptly recalled to a 
consciousness of his surroundings, and then spoke 
hurriedly to his little audience : 

“ Do you know the name of that wicked giant ? 
It is Intemperance. He steals into houses in in- 
nocent-looking glasses and bottles. Never let 
him come to yours; never send him to your 
neighbors. I will give you some books to-mor- 
row that will tell you more about him.” 

But the mother’s imperative call was repeated, 
and the little people followed her away before they 
fairly comprehended the explanation, their eyes 
still round with wonder and alarm. 

Miss Prudy’s eyes were in nearly the same con- 
dition when she sought the small room appropriated 
to her use. 

“ He’s crazy or he’s something, and I don’t know 
whether it’s one or t’other,” she said to herself, era- 


20 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


phatically. "Such wild talk fairly made my hair 
stand up — or ’twould if it hadn’t been for the hair- 
pins. He’s a lunacy yet, most likely, or a pick- 
pocket. Anyhow, I ain’t goin’ to be murdered in 
my sleep without I’m wakened up to know it — not 
if I can help it.” 

In pursuance of which resolution she carefully 
locked her door, drew an old trunk against it, and 
laboriously piled on top of that two chairs and a 
wash-pitcher. Then, her barricade completed, she 
removed from her ears two little worn earrings 
and deposited them, together with an old bead 
purse containing seventy-five cents in silver, in the 
toe of her stocking, and secreted that receptacle be- 
tween the feather bed and straw mattress. 

"I didn’t know what he was talking about till 
he said that last, and I shouldn’t wonder if he said 
that to keep folks from thinking. Maybe he was 
sort of trying to prepare us for murders and things. 
Makes me shiver! Well, he can’t get in here with- 
out cracking the pitcher — that’s one comfort.” 

Having taken all possible precautions, Miss 
Prudy carefully covered her head, and finally fell 
asleep. The household was undisturbed all the 
night, notwithstanding her dire forebodings, and 
she viewed the book-agent rather more leniently 
when she met him at the breakfast- table next 
morning. Mrs. Vance’s tone had lost its sharp- 
ness also, but she watched the stranger thought- 
fully. She declined rather coldly to look at any of 


PORTMANTEAU AND STORY OPEN. 21 


his books when he opened his old portmanteau. 
She “ had no need of anything of the kind,” she 
said, but she offered no objection when he bestowed 
some little volumes upon the children. 

The storm had ceased, the sun shone brightly 
over the snow, and the guest of the night took his 
departure early. Mrs. Vance watched him from 
her window with the same thoughtful, half-troubled 
look in her eyes. 

“ I sometimes wish — almost — that George was in 
some other business,” she said, hesitatingly, as she 
turned back to the fire. 

“Eh? Who?” asked the farmer, looking up 
from the almanac he was consulting. 

“ Our George,” repeated Mrs. Vance, more faint- 
ly, as if the words sounded even in her own ears 
like a near approach to heresy. 

“Son George? Why, he’s doing well enough 
as he is, I can tell you. Making money hand over 
fist. He’s a rich man already.” 

“ Yes, I know; but that business ! Liquor does 
bring a deal of misery into the world.” 

“Oh ho! that’s it? That fellow’s talk set you 
to worrying?” Mr. Vance laughed at the absurd- 
ity of the idea. “ Why, by his own tell, he’s been 
in an asylum, and I don’t believe he’s rightly fit 
to be out yet. Any way, it’s nothing to do with 
George. He don’t drink nor keep a grog-shop. 
A distillery and a wholesale house is very different 
from that, don’t you see? Of course drinking is 


22 


OLD PORTMANTEA U. 


bad — I don’t see what anybody wants to do it for, 
for my part — and temperance is all right; but 
there’s reason in all things.” 

Mrs. Vance brightened a little; she had only 
wanted to be reassured. She was very proud of 
her stepson, who was doing a flourishing business 
in the city, and who frequently sent substantial 
tokens of his interest back to his father and the 
old homestead. He was already a prosperous man 
when Mrs. Vance came into the family, blit he had 
always treated her with a kindness and attention 
that had won her regard, and she delighted also in 
the &dat his brief home-visits created in that country 
neighborhood. It was always with a little amiable 
ruffling of plumage that she spoke of “ our George,” 
his prospects, opinions and doings generally. After 
all, it was probable that a bright, sensible man like 
George Vance would be as good a judge of right 
and wrong as any traveling book-peddler. Be- 
sides, he had nothing to do with it, any way ; and 
with that concluding thought the stepmother’s 
clouded brow cleared, and she began to rinse the 
breakfast-cups. 

" A bright man George is — an extraordinary man 
— if I do say it myself,” continued the old farmer, 
fairly launched on a favorite topic.. “ Not one in 
a hundred could have got ahead as he has. And 
he’s generous, too; always remembers me and all 
his friends. A whole-souled fellow. Look at the 
way he adopted your sister Emily— just as if she’d 


PORTMANTEAU AND STORY OPEN. 23 


been his own aunt; couldn't have treated her any 
differently. Not that it was any more than right, 
but many wouldn’t have thought of it. When she 
was left a widow, he managed she should get work 
and helped her in various ways, and then found a 
place for Rick in his own business. Mere boy, too, 
when he took him first, and he couldn’t have been 
of much use.” 

“ It’s so long since I’ve heard from Emily that 
I do wonder she don’t write,” said Mrs. Vance, 
musingly. “I’m afraid something is the matter; 
and I couldn’t help thinking she seemed sick or 
uneasy, or something, the last time she was here.” 

“There you go again! What won’t a woman 
fret about?” laughed Mr. Vance, good-humoredly. 
“ I didn’t see but she looked lively enough ; and 
as for not hearing, ‘ No news is good news,’ you 
know.” 

Out behind the woodpile Joe also watched the 
thin, bent figure wrapped in the long cloak as it 
made its way through the drifts in the lane and 
down to the road. 

“ I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Joe, thought- 
fully, “ if the kind of luggage he carries in that 
old traveling-bag was of more ’count in this house 
some day than it is now. It may be craziness — 
such talk — but it sounds a precious sight like 
sense. Mr. Vance, he says there’s reason in all 
things, but there ain’t any in a man’s head when 


24 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


whisky gets there — that’s sure. Here’s a cross- 
road ; which way’ll I go?” 

Joe had a fashion of coming to “ cross-roads,” a 
better fashion still of recognizing them when he 
did — of choosing his path and persevering in it. 
He stood with his head bent for a minute, kicking 
a chip up from the snow ; then he looked up again 
and observed, as if taking the woodpile into con- 
fidence, 

“ Shouldn’t be surprised if a temperance society 
would be a good thing hereabouts. Pretty near 
here, in fact — not so far off as the house ; say be- 
hind the woodpile. One member wouldn’t do so 
bad if he was an out-and-out honest one — sort 
of like Joseph Kenyon, Esq. Small society, but 
wonderful unanimous, and no trouble about get- 
ting ’em together. ‘ Great oaks from little acorns 
grow.’ Well, there ought to be a pledge or some- 
thing.” He drew a pencil from his pocket, picked 
up a smooth white chip, and after a minute’s re- 
flection wrote: “I’ll nevtr be a drunkard. I’ll 
never make other folks so. I’ll never begin to do 
either, not by the first drop.” It seemed very 
short and simple. The boy turned the chip 
and wrote on the other side: “This means all 
that I can’t put down. This is my solemn prom- 
ise. Amen ! Joseph Kenyon.” 

“There ain’t any witnesses, only me — and God. 
I shouldn’t wonder if that was about enough,” said 
Joe, soberly. 


PORTMANTEAU AND STORY OPEN 25 


He slipped the pledge into his pocket, and when 
he went into the house threw it into the blazing 
fire. 

“What you burning up that chip for?” de- 
manded inquisitive Benny. 

“For safekeeping,” answered Joe, quietly. “I 
mean it shall be kept safe enough.” 


1 


CHAPTER II. 


EMILY’S FOLKS . 


HE sunshine banished the storm ; the books 
with which the children had been pleased 
soon lost their novelty and were tossed 
aside, and with them vanished all thought 
of the giver. Christmas drew near, and a 
large box from George Vance delighted the house- 
hold with its contents, and seemed to them an un- 
deniable proof that the sender was, as his father 
reiterated, “ a whole-souled fellow/’ though “ whole- 
souled ” means a great deal when one comes to study 
the phrase. 

There was a new overcoat, a package of books 
and a liberal check for the father ; a handsome 
dress for tlie stepmother ; bright, soft material for 
children’s clothing, with “ city patterns” by which 
to cut them, and toys by the quantity. Even Miss 
Prudy, who was often at the farmhouse, was not 
forgotten. A warm shawl had been' added for 
her, and a pair of skates for Joe. This last gift 
was received with a burst of genuine pleasure at 
frst, but afterward it was viewed very thought- 
fully. 

26 


EMILY’S FOLKS. 


27 


“ They’re nice — a sight better than my old ones 
— and I’ll have a lot of fun with ’em, unless I 
happen to find their owner/’ Joe whispered to 
himsfelf at the conclusion of his reverie. 

Joe’s skating-times were not of frequent recur- 
rence. He went down to the river for a little while 
the day after the box came, and did not find an- 
other opportunity for more than a week. The 
second time, when he had been gliding up and 
down the smooth ice until his face w r as all aglow 
and the low-dropping sun warned him that it was 
time to turn homeward, he noticed a boy near him 
who was casting admiring glances upon his new ac- 
quisition. As Joe unbuckled the skates the boy 
picked up one of them : 

“ Did you buy these yourself, Joe?” 

“ N(5^” answered Joe; “ they’re a present.” 

“You’re lucky! Nobody makes me that kind 
of presents — nor any other kind.” 

The last words were added with a laugh, but 
one that had more of bitterness than merriment in 
it. 

“ Don’t? Why, you’ve folks of your own — ” 
Joe suddenly stopped. “ Folks of your own ” 
meant a great deal in his vocabulary generally, rep- 
resenting a treasure he had never possessed since 
he could remember; but this boy’s dress told plain- 
ly enough that not luxuries only, but even com- 
forts, often missed him. His mother sometimes 
helped in the housecleaning at the farm, and his 


28 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


father — Joe had seen him reeling homeward 
from the tavern many a time; he remembered 
that in a moment. 

“Well, you can have these,” he said, soberly. 
“ They’re too big for you, but I guess you can 
make ’em do.” 

“ May I ? Can I try ’em ?” The boy looked 
doubtfully at Joe and longingly at the skates. 
“ Tell you I’d like to ! I’ll take the best kind of 
care of ’em, and bring ’em back all right, if you 
mean it earnest. AVill you lend ’em?” 

“ No ; I’ll give ’em to you.” 

“ I don’t see any fun in that kind of joke,” said 
the boy, sullenly. “ That’s the way with you fel- 
lers that have anything. You like to torment any- 
body that hain’t.” 

“No, I don’t,” said Joe, positively. “Fact is, 
I didn’t rightly know whether the skates belong- 
ed to me, anyhow. I sort of suspected somebody 
else’s ’nitials was on ’em all the time, and now I 
think it’s yours. You see, it’s this way : Whisky 
don’t owe me anything, and it does you, I take it. 
Nobody’s any right to take money they’ve cheated 
you out of to make me a present with. ‘ Be just 
before you’re generous ’ is what they used to write 
in the copy-books, you know.” 

“I don’t know anything about it — what you 
mean,” answered the boy. “ I don’t s’pose any 
•whisky-sellers ’round here’d give you the skates,” 
he added, flushing a little. 


EMILY'S FOLKS. 


29 


“ It’s all in the family,” said Joe, laconically. 
“Here or somewhere else don’t matter.” 

“ There ain’t no reason you should give ’em to 
me,” began the boy, still hesitating, though his face 
had brightened ; but Joe interrupted : 

“ Well, take ’em on a long loan, then. Look 
here! I can’t use ’em much — don’t have time. 
I’ll call at your house and get ’em whenever I want 
to skate, and you may have ’em the rest of the 
time.” 

Joe thrust his hands into his pockets and march- 
ed off whistling — whistled until a turn in the road 
hid him from his companion, and then he walked 
more slowly and began to reflect: 

“If George Vance had owed me anything, I’d 
have felt as if they belonged to me; but these 
presents, with that sort of money — Well, I don’t 
know for sure whether I’ve been a fool or only 
honest, but I rather risk being the first than not 
being the last: a feller sleeps better. Lack of 
brains never kept anybody awake, as I know of. 
Suppose it would take a wonderful long-lived 
bookkeeper to get the whisky-accounts of the 
world straightened up, but I do believe it’s 
nearer right by one pair of skates and Joe fell 
to whistling again. 

He said nothing of the day’s occurrence at the 
farm ; and as the children there were too small to 
be trusted on the river, no one was the wiser for it, 
and he was spared uncomfortable explanations. 


30 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“Pm going to get rich , like my big brother 
George when I grow up,” said Teddy, grandly, 
that evening. 

Joe hesitated a little; he was not quite certain 
how vigorously the new society ought to promul- 
gate its principles or attempt carrying war into the 
enemy’s country ; but as he was the only listener to 
the speech, he remarked, 

“ When you get to be a man, you’d better go to 
work in good earnest at some honest, useful busi- 
ness that will be of some use to yourself and other 
folks.” 

The box had come, but the weeks brought no 
message from that other family in town concerning 
whom Mrs. Vance was anxious, and her wonder- 
ings “ why Emily didn’t write” increased, and re- 
sulted at last in her deciding to make her yearly 
visit to her sister some two months earlier than 
usual. All Miss Prudy’s skill was called into 
requisition in the making up of the new dress ; 
and when the wardrobe was in order, Miss Prudy 
herself was invited to remain as housekeeper dur- 
ing the lady’s absence — a position and title at 
which Joe privately laughed. 

“Housekeeper! Why, she wouldn’t keep it a 
minute if even a mouse asked her to give it up,” 
he said. 

After all the preparation, the journey was but a 
short one of fifty miles — the longest part of it, 
seemingly, the ride with Joe to the little country 


EMILY’S FOLKS. 


31 


station. It was only home-cares that made visits 
infrequent. 

A plain but pleasant little home was Mrs. Ches- 
ter’s, on a retired street quite removed from the 
centre of the busy, bustling town. The bright, 
cheerful rooms were in faultless order of welcome, 
and a girlish face was watching from the window 
when Mrs. Vance arrived. 

“And you’re all well ?” was her first exclama- 
tion. “ I declare, I’m thankful, but I do feel like 
scolding.” 

“ I didn’t know it was so long since I had writ- 
ten. No, we haven’t been sick, but I’ve been busy 
and worried about various things; and, to confess 
the truth, I had entirely forgotten that your last 
letter was unanswered until your note told us you 
were coming;” and Mrs. Chester laughed a slightly 
embarrassed laugh, with a faint flush rising to her 
thin cheek. 

“ Emily Chester, you are older than I am, to be 
sure, but I shouldn’t think your memory could be 
failing yet,” cried Mrs. Vance with a mingling of 
surprise and vexation. 

“ Not failed so that it is a matter of much regret, 
since it has brought 11s this visit from you,” said 
the sister, smiling; and Mrs. Vance laughed and 
settled herself for a comfortable chat, with the 
declaration that she “ felt rather forgiving.” 

But Mrs. Chester had grown old fast ; she saw 
that presently, when the bustle of welcome was 


32 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


over. The face looked worn and the threads of 
white were beginning to show thickly in the brown 
hair. It was strange that it should be so, for how 
comfortable all her surroundings were ! This home 
was not luxurious, but surely it had every comfort; 
and though they still took in some sewing — Mrs. 
Chester and Lizzie — they need not burden them- 
selves with it or work hard; there was no cause 
for that, with Rick’s present salary. They were 
certainly very agreeably situated, Mrs. Vance 
thought. How pretty Lizzie had grown ! She 
watched the sweet-faced, bright-haired girl with 
fond admiration. Gentle and graceful she was, 
but not so full of spirits as young girls are wont 
to be, and her face, when settled into thoughtful- 
ness, was almost sad. The aunt was inclined to 
think that there must be something depressing in 
city air; and arriving at this solution of all that 
had perplexed her, she gave herself up to the 
thorough enjoyment of her visit. 

There were so many things to talk of, so many 
questions to ask and answer, that time flew swiftly, 
and it was an unwelcome interruption to them all 
when, late in the afternoon, there came a knock at 
the side door. Lizzie’s first impulse on answering 
it was to learn the stranger’s errand where he stood, 
but a second glance at the bent figure shivering 
in the cold changed her thought, and she said 
kindly, 

“Will you come to the fire?” 


EMILY'S FOLKS. 


33 


The invitation was accepted, and Mrs. Vance rec- 
ognized at once the stooping figure, the long cloak 
and the old portmanteau. The stranger betrayed 
no remembrance of her, however ; he did not seem 
to notice any one particularly; but with the same 
grave, abstracted air he had worn at the farm held 
his hands to the fire for a moment, glanced up at 
the clock, and then introduced his business : 

“ I have some books that I should like to show 
you.” 

Lizzie looked at them with a quick sigh, as 
quickly repressed as she noted their character. 

“They are good — useful, I doubt not — but I 
cannot take any to-day,” she said. 

The stranger did not urge her purchasing; he 
arose at once : 

“Then will you let me leave you these? You 
may care to read them or give them to some friend.” 
He placed two little pamphlets in her hand and 
was gone. 

“ What is it, Lizzie ?” asked the mother as the 
door closed. 

“Two little tracts — on ‘Temperance.’ ” Lizzie 
said the last word with a slight hesitancy, and 
again that faint flush came to Mrs. Chester’s 
face. 

“Queer old body, isn’t he?” remarked Mrs. 
Vance, carelessly glancing at the books. The 
titles were startling, in large black letters, on the 
pale yellow paper: 

3 


34 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


jg>ht of intemperance/' 

“ jHo ©runfcarts in peahen/' 

Lizzie laid them down in plain view on the 
table by which she was sewing. She glanced at 
them now and then as she raised her head, and 
presently, with a quick movement, pushed them 
back where they were partly hidden by other 
things. Still, her eyes continued to seek them, 
and at last, with a slight, determined compres- 
sion of her lips, she restored them to their first 
place. 

Her mother watched her silently. Mrs. Vance 
also watched her, wondering what made “ girls so 
fussy over every little thing.” She suspected Liz- 
zie had looped and unlooped the curtains in just 
that way and studied over the hanging of every 
picture; but then, after all, it was pleasant to 
have girlish fingers about to attend to such mat- 
ters. 

The younger daughter came home from school — 
merry, blooming little Mabel, brimming over with 
life, with joy at meeting her aunt, and with bits of 
news from her school- world. There was no evi- 
dence that she had found city air depressing, and 
again Mrs. Vance assured herself that her sister 
was certainly very happily situated. 

“ Richard comes home every evening, I suppose, 
and then you are all together?” she said. 


EMILY’S FOLKS. 


35 


“ Usually he does, some time between six and 
seven. He is not very punctual,” the mother 
answered. 

“ It is a long walk for him, you know,” Lizzie 
added, quickly. 

But she began to watch for him at the earliest 
moment that he could be expected, glancing from 
the window now and then as she passed to and fro 
preparing the evening meal, even running out to 
the front step once or twice, and starting at every 
footstep. The mother also seemed nervous and 
anxious, and a look of relief crossed both faces 
when he came at last. The table had been wait- 
ing for more than half an hour, but no one re- 
marked upon his late arrival, and Lizzie looked up 
with a smile and quick word of welcome, which 
her brother appeared not to heed. 

He greeted his aunt politely, but with no exces- 
sive cordiality; and after a few brief inquiries rel- 
ative to the friends she had left, he subsided into 
silence. The bright, merry boy had altered strange- 
ly, had grown colder and graver — morose almost 
— as he grew to manhood, Mrs. Vance thought. 
Certainly, he manifested no desire to contribute 
anything to the home-cheerfulness. He made 
some remark about miserable fires, and stirred the 
glowing coals until he sent a shower of ashes over 
the neatly-swept fender. Presently he caught sight 
of the tracts upon the table, took them and glanced 
at them for a minute, then threw them down again, 


36 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


half angrily, half sneeringly, and said sharply to 
Lizzie, 

“ Where did you get that trash ?” 

She answered very pleasantly : 

“An old man left them here to-day — an odd- 
looking man. I wonder if you know him, Lick? 
He carried — ” 

“ I’m sure I don’t want to know him if these are 
any sample of his style,” interrupted Lick, rudely. 
Then, as he met his aunt’s wondering eyes, he 
laughed, and left that lady uncertain whether the 
words had been spoken in jest or earnest, but quite 
positive that such style of jesting was strange and 
not very pleasant. They were very fond of him, 
however: the watchful eyes of mother and sister con- 
stantly turning toward him told that. Mabel was 
bidden to bring Lick’s slippers ; Lick’s tastes at 
the table were carefully consulted ; and when, scan- 
ning the tempting array, he inquired in a dissatisfied 
tone if there were any toast, Lizzie slipped away, 
and soon returned, with flushed cheek, but with the 
desired article. 

“ Can’t you stay with us this evening ? Auntie 
is here, you know,” Lizzie said, coaxingly, as she 
saw him pushing back his plate. 

“ No, I can’t,” he answered, shortly ; and with 
the briefest possible word of excuse to his aunt, 
he arose. 

“That’s a gracious way of excusing yourself, 
Lick,” laughed saucy little Mabel. “ It sounded 


EMILY’S FOLKS. 


37 


as much like ‘ Your money or your life!’ as any- 
thing.” 

Mrs. Vance laughed, but the mother started un- 
easily, and Richard turned away without any reply. 
If the tears gathered in Lizzie’s gentle eyes, the 
long lashes hid them ; and when they were raised 
again, she smiled and turned the conversation with 
ready tact. 

They had adjourned to the parlor, and it was 
still early in the evening, when a step sounded in 
the hall. Mabel sprang up in surprise, but before 
she could open the door Richard, unexpectedly to 
all, appeared again. 

“ I found I could come,” he said, answering 
Lizzie’s quick, questioning glance. “ You do have 
your own way sometimes.” He spoke smilingly, 
but look and tone held a deeper meaning as he laid 
his hand half playfully, half caressingly, on his 
sister’s head and bent it back so that he could look 
into her face. 

“The wishes of these pretty sisters are worth 
minding, aren’t they?” said Mrs. Vance, idly 
enough. 

But Richard answered seriously : 

“Lizzie’s are. Unless a man is an idiot, Aunt 
Vance, he must know when he has the best mother 
and sister in the world.” 

Lizzie put up her hand to clasp his, and said 
“Flatterer!” but the glistening tears in her eyes 
were unmistakable then. 


38 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


The Rick who spent the evening with them 
seemed a very different person from the one who 
had been with them earlier. He was kind, agree- 
able, manifesting a sort of remorseful tenderness 
toward his mother and elder sister and pleasantly 
indulgent to Mabel's childish merriment, yet now 
and then, in some pause of the conversation or 
when it drifted a little away from him, he dropped 
into fits of deep musing and a cloud of pain and 
gloom settled down upon his face. Lizzie’s eyes 
were quick to see it, and she always aroused him. 
She opened the old melodeon, and they sang to- 
gether; then she drew him into sketching street- 
incidents for his aunt, for Rick was a ready and 
amusing talker when he chose. The time pass- 
ed quickly. A delightful evening, Mrs. Vance 
thought ; yet at its close, when Rick had bidden 
them good-night, she overheard two mysterious 
sentences. 

“ If it would only last !” Mrs. Chester said, with 
a sigh. 

And Lizzie answered, 

Sufficient unto the day is the evil,’ mother 
darling. We will be glad to-night.” 

The next day Rick was not with them at supper, 
nor did he come in during the evening. He was 
“ sometimes detained down town,” the mother said, 
and his absence was not alluded to again ; yet Liz- 
zie wandered uneasily to doors and windows and 
seemed unable to settle quietly to any employment. 


EMILY'S FOLKS. 


39 


If business frequently detained him in this way, 
Mrs. Yance wondered that the family did not retire 
as usual. It was strange that they should think it 
necessary to sit up for him, but they did. She had 
heard Lizzie pass her room with Mabel, and after- 
ward go down stairs again. Late in the night she 
was awakened by hearing uncertain steps in the 
hall, a shuffling of feet and a loud voice quickly 
hushed. Then silence followed, and she soon sank 
into slumber again. 

The next morning she inquired for Richard. 

" He came home very late last night, and he is 
very tired — I mean not feeling well — this morning, 
and we will not call him to breakfast/’ Lizzie 
said. 

But there were dark circles around her own eyes, 
and the mother, pale and weary, only sipped her 
coffee and ate nothing. 

During the morning there came a message from 
Mr. George Vance, and to this Mrs. Chester sent 
the brief reply, “ Richard has a severe headache 
and is trying to sleep. He will be at the store 
in the afternoon.” 

It was late in the afternoon when he went, going 
directly from his room without coming down to 
speak to any one. It was late in the evening also 
when he returned, and then, apparently, he had 
quite recovered, and scarcely remembered his illness 
when his aunt alluded to it. His face was flushed 
and his manner somewhat strange, but he was in 


40 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


high spirits — almost boisterously gay, indeed — 
though his mother and sister were unusually silent. 

Mrs. Vance was not a keen-sighted woman. She 
did wonder that her sister and Lizzie should seem 
troubled, and even alarmed, by so slight an indis- 
position, and she thought it absurd that they should 
make a practice of sitting up until Rick returned 
at night. This only son was a very important 
member of the family, evidently. She fancied he 
had been spoiled by the care and petting bestowed 
upon him. He was certainly a young gentleman 
of remarkably variable moods. Farther than this 
her observations would not have gone had not Mr. 
George Vance enlightened her. She always spent 
part of her time with her stepson when in the 
city. 

“Rick is doing badly,” said Mr. Vance, seri- 
ously. “ Fm disappointed in him.” 

“ Not good at the business ?” questioned Mrs. 
Vance in surprise. 

“ Good enough when he chooses to be, but that? 
is not often. He understands his work thoroughly 
and is bright and quick, and he was very useful to 
me at one time, but he has been going the wrong 
way lately.” 

“ Getting careless and too independent, I sup- 
pose ?” 

“ Getting wild and reckless, and terribly dissi- 
pated too, for so young a fellow. He has a set 
of companions that are ruining him. He is out 


EMILY’S FOLKS. 


41 


with them until nobody knows what time at night, 
and often goes home so mucli the worse for drink 
that he is not fit to come to the store-room at all 
in the morning. I wouldn’t have told you this,” 
he added, seeing his stepmother’s troubled face, 
“ only that it cannot be a secret from anybody 
much longer unless there is a great change.” 

“ Oh dear !” said Mrs. Vance in real sorrow ; “ it 
is strange he should follow such a course as that ! 
None of his family were ever fond of drinking; 
how could he ever fall into such a way?” 

“ Well,” answered Mr. Vance, hesitatingly, “of 
course he had chances enough, with it about him 
all the while, to form the habit if he felt inclined, 
but there was no necessity for his doing so. I own 
the whole establishment, and I haven’t found it 
necessary to become a drunkard. Yes, I’m very 
sorry. I liked Rick ; I have felt a great interest 
in him and in his family. If it hadn’t been for 
that, I wouldn’t have borne half what I have. 
There must be an end to it, though. I’ve talked 
with Rick plainly and warned him that my for- 
bearance won’t last much longer. Why, it’s a bad 
example to everybody about the place. I’d have 
discharged any one else in half the time.” 

“ I don’t know what they can do. Poor 
Emily !” 

“ Oh, well, I’m not sure but sending him away 
would really be the best thing for him; roughing 
it a little might bring him to his senses. Rick’s 


42 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


young yet, and a good fellow at heart, too. Good 
many chances for him to turn around yet and prove 
himself a respectable man of business. It isn’t 
best to look on the dark side, you know.” 

Mr. Vance was never fond of dark sides nor of 
scanning too closely the consequences of his own 
acts; he shunned disagreeables generally, and 
hastened to change the conversation : 

“ If your visit had been two or three months 
later, we might have offered you a room in our 
new house. It is growing as fast as it can in this 
cold weather. You must see it while you are here. 
I think it will be rather a fine place.” 

A fine place it was; a stranger would have 
echoed that comment. Stately, elegant, carefully 
arranged, it had all that wealth and skill could 
lavish upon it to make a grand and beautiful home. 
In the eyes of Mrs. Vance it was a palace and 
her stepson a more wonderful person than ever. 

“Well,” he said, complacently, when he had 
shown her through it, explaining how it was yet 
to be finished, and they had passed out and stood 
upon the street again, taking a final look at the 
building, “what do you think of it?” 

But before Mrs. Vance’s congratulatory answer 
could be spoken a deep voice sounded from behind 
them : 

“‘Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness 
to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that 
he may be delivered from the power of evil ! 


EMILY’S FOLKS. 


43 


“ ‘ Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by 
cutting off many people, and hast sinned against 
thy soul. 

‘“For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and 
the beam out of the timber shall answer it.’” 

“Who is that?” said Mrs. Vance, startled. 

Mr. Vance looked exceedingly annoyed for a 
moment — only for a moment ; then he laughed : 

“A crazy fellow — ‘ Old Portmanteau/ they call 
him. I never heard any other name. He was in 
a lunatic asylum for a long time, Fve been told — 
drank himself nearly to death. He isn’t very sane 
yet, but some temperance societies employ him — 
partly out of pity, I suppose — and he has just sense 
enough to travel about scattering tracts and utter- 
ing ghostly warnings. Nobody pays much atten- 
tion to him.” 

Mrs. Vance turned, and again recognized the 
bent form and fluttering cloak that were passing 
down the street, but she said nothing. Some of 
the workmen shrugged their shoulders, however, 
and as soon as the proprietor was out of hearing 
one of them remarked thoughtfully, 

“ I don’t know as I’d give much to own this 
myself, considering the foundation.” 


CHAPTER III. 


TWO SEED-SOWINGS. 

« LD PORTMANTEAU went on his way — 
a wandering way always when he was in the 
town — taking now one street, now another, 
^ as the fancy seized him. The wind tossed 
his old cloak and whistled through his gray 
hair, but he did not heed it; his moving lips were 
forming the old question, “ How long? how long?” 
A group of rough little urchins noticed him and 
teasingly followed, shouting out in sing-song tones, 

“ Old Portmanteau ! Old Portmanteau ! 

Where you goin’ as fast as you can to?” 

He paid no heed to them — did not even seem to 
hear them until one mischievous brain in the com- 
pany invented another couplet : 

“ If you’ve got in your bag some gin and rum, 

Won’t you stop and give us some?” 

He turned suddenly at that, and the dark eyes 
flashed from under the gray brows. 

“Boys,” he said, holding out his right hand, 
“ do you see that ? I’d cut it off before I’d offer 

44 


TWO SEED-SOWINGS. 


45 


any one of you a glass of liquor. Don’t you 
know — you in your ragged clothes — that nearly all 
the crime and sorrow in this world comes from that 
vile stuff? Don’t you know that it will kill you, 
body and soul ? Never touch it ! I’ll show you 
what I have in my bag, and give you something 
from it, too;” and opening it, he tossed a handful 
of the tracts among them. 

Half abashed, perhaps somewhat awed by his 
vehemence, the boys gathered up the books and 
pursued him no farther. He passed on into a 
quieter, broader street, and paused at a handsome 
residence. 

“ The mistress of the house,” he said to the 
servant who opened the door. It was his usual 
demand, and he usually gained his point, too ; his 
very abstraction and failure to notice hints or 
frowns was an aid to him. 

This time no hesitation was manifested. The 
servant only glanced at him, and ushered him into 
a pleasant room where the cheerful fire shone on a 
soft, mossy carpet, luxurious chairs and velvet 
lounges, rare pictures on the walls and a foam of 
white lace at the windows. A lady, young and 
fair, came toward him with a little blue-eyed boy 
clinging to her hand, and with one quick, kind 
glance at the gray hair and worn clothing drew a 
chair nearer to the marble hearth and invited him 
to be seated. He did not notice her glance, and 
another and longer one induced her to look pa- 


46 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


tiently and carefully over his stock, determined to 
buy if possible : 

“Your books all treat of the one subject ?” 

“All against the one evil; yes, madam. The 
world’s enemies are many and life is short; one 
cannot fight them all. I battle with the foe in 
front of me — the deadliest one I know — and it 
will take more lifetimes than mine to crush him 
out. I ask no furloughs, and there is no discharge 
in this war.” 

“ You are very earnest,” said the lady, a touch 
of wonder in her tone. 

“ Earnest !” The glowing eyes turned full upon 
her. “Madam, when the curse has pierced your 
heart, darkened your life, destroyed your home, 
will not you be in earnest?” 

“Mine?” The lady started and shivered at the 
strange form of the question, and involuntarily 
drew her child closer to her side. Then her pity- 
ing glance fell upon the stranger again : “ And 
you have suffered so ? I do not wonder that you 
strongly condemn the evil. Do not think I am 
one of its friends.” 

Her head bent low over the books, and she 
selected a story for children, prettily bound and 
illustrated : 

“I will take this. My little Harold is too 
young to care for it now, but he can read it when 
he is older.” 

She placed the money in the thin hand. The 


TWO SEED-SOWINGS. 


47 


man closed his portmanteau, bowed gravely and 
departed. 

“ What is it, mamma?” The child had taken 
up the book and was looking at the pictures. 

“It is a story, Harry; I’ll tell you about it 
some day. It means that my boy must never 
touch wine or brandy, or any intoxicating liquor. 
Will you remember, darling?” 

“Yes.” The little fellow promised readily 
enough. “ But what makes you look so right 
straight into my eyes, mamma?” 

Why did she, indeed ? Why had she spoken so 
earnestly words that the child could not under- 
stand? She scarcely knew, and only kissed him 
for answer. She took up the dainty bit of needle- 
work that had busied her before her caller came, 
but it had lost it’s interest. She threw open the 
piano, and mechanically played an air half through 
before she even knew what she was playing. The 
stranger’s words haunted her and recalled once 
more a tiny cloud “ no larger than a man’s hand ” 
that sometimes appeared in her sunny sky. 

When her boy, nestled in his crib, had drifted 
away to his afternoon dreams, she remembered a 
suggestion, heard somewhere, of trouble in the 
family where she sometimes sent her sewing — an 
intemperate son. She had not thought much of 
it at the time, but to-day her heart was strange- 
ly tender toward all that class of sufferers. She 
recollected the faces of mother and daughter, and 


OLD PORTMANTEA U. 


■ 48 

how she had thought in her brief calls that she 
would like to know them better. Perhaps they 
needed more work than they obtained. She gath- 
ered up a bundle readily, and with it deposited in 
the carriage beside her went at once upon her er- 
rand. She could not betray her knowledge, could 
not offer her sympathy, but she did offer friend- 
liness, chatting easily about the work, arranging 
that a liberal price should be paid for it, appealing 
to the young seamstress’s taste, and lingering to 
look at her stand of plants and talk with her of 
the best method of cultivating them. 

She had done better than she knew. They did 
need the work, and this order of Mrs. Halroyd’s 
was of more consequence than Lizzie had cared to 
say. She had expressed her thanks and readiness 
to undertake it — plainly, indeed, but very quietly. 
She could scarcely bear to acknowledge to herself 
how much they needed such employment — that but 
a small portion of Richard’s salary could be de- 
pended upon now. 

Sometimes Rick was penitent and ashamed when 
he had but a trifle left of his month’s salary to give 
to his mother; sometimes he doled out sullenly 
what he had, and was too unlike himself to care. 
In either case it was but the little, and gradually 
growing less as his own expenses away from home 
and the amount he lavished upon his companions 
increased and deductions on account of his absence 
from business were more frequent. All that love 


TWO SEED-SOWINGS. 


49 


could do to win him back seemed in vain. He 
made good resolutions, kept them for a week, and 
then fell back into the old ways. Mr. Vance’s ex- 
postulations and threats only irritated him. He 
did not always show this openly, for a dread of 
losing his situation held him somewhat in check, 
yet he believed himself of much more importance 
there than he really was, and in some of his wilder 
moments even thought of making a change him- 
self. When his sister urged his more regular at- 
tendance at the store and the danger of being 
thrown out of employment, he answered careless- 
ly, “ Plenty of places better than Vance’s.” 

This was one phase of Rick’s conduct. There 
were other moods, when, lying upon the sofa after 
some night’s debauch, pale, suffering, wretched, he 
bitterly bewailed his weakness, called himself a 
brute, a fool, declaring that he was breaking his 
mother’s heart and darkening Lizzie’s life, and 
wishing himself out of the world, since it would 
be better for all who loved him. He was a dis- 
grace to them all ; he should drag them all down 
at last. Gloomily he refused all words of consola- 
tion, all suggestions of amendment, saying there 
was nothing left for him. Then, at last, utterly 
miserable, he would break away, despite their en- 
treaties, to drown the consciousness in the cause 
of his misery. 

Others wondered at his folly and harshly con- 
demned him, but those two, mother and sister, 
4 


50 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


while they blamed, pitied and loved, him. He was 
their own ; they knew what he had been, what in 
his better hours he still was, and the possibility of 
what he might become. That soul enchained by 
sin was dear to them as their own; they could 
never give him up. But those were weary days. 
It was little wonder that the mother’s hair whiten- 
ed fast and that Lizzie’s cheek lost its roundness. 
When thoroughly intoxicated, Kick was boisterous 
and quarrelsome. He seldom came home in that 
condition ; those who were with him prevented 
that; but the two sad women, sitting late over 
their sewing, started and trembled at every loud 
voice in the street, and feared lest every ap- 
proaching step might be the bearer of bad tid- 
ings. 

One day Kick came home from the store early 
and entirely alone. 

“Sick? What is the matter, Richard ?” his 
mother questioned in a quick, startled way. She 
lived in those days in constant apprehension of 
some undefined evil. 

“No; I’m well enough. I’ve only left business 
— or it has left me, and that’s about the same 
thing,” he answered, coolly. 

“Left the store? How?” 

“By invitation of that estimable gentleman, 
George Vance.” 

“ He has dismissed you ?” 

“That’s one way of putting it. He said he 


TWO SEED-SOWINGS. 


51 


could do without me, and I’m very sure I can 
do without him.” 

There was a moment’s silence. Lizzie was won- 
dering what they should do — how bear the added 
burden of Rick’s expenses, for he had at least sup- 
ported himself, though he had done little more of 
late; wondering whether he could obtain employ- 
ment elsewhere. Who would engage him, knowing 
what he was? She thought of the effect of entire 
idleness upon Rick himself, too, with no round of 
w T ork to hold him in even partial check. If he at- 
tempted vainly to obtain a situation, would not his 
want of success make him desperate and drive him 
ruinward faster than ever? Swift thoughts these 
were; they flashed through her brain in the brief 
silence ; and then she asked, 

“ Why was it, Rick ? Any special reason — any- 
thing new ?” 

Alas the sorrow in that last little word ! Rick 
resented it : 

“New! What should there be? It has been the 
same old lecture over and over. I’ve heard it 
until I’m tired of it, and I suppose I showed it 
pretty plainly. He thinks because he hires a 
man — at a poor-enough salary, too — to attend to 
his business during the day that he mustn’t have 
a thought for anything else, or have any pleasures 
or companions out of work-hours lest he should 
use up some of the strength and energy that Mr. 
George Vance will want the next day for his pre- 


52 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


cious business. I won’t stand it — I made up my 
mind to that — and I thought he might have sense 
enough to know it. He began the old lecture ; 
said I didn’t keep my head clear enough for busi- 
ness. I told him I didn’t think that sort of busi- 
ness required a very clear head, judging from the 
sort of people that succeeded in it, and that if the 
advice he had just given me were generally followed 
he’d soon have no business at all. He was angry 
enough at that, turned red as a lobster, and I 
wasn’t very mild and submissive, and so, after a 
few more words, we parted. I don’t care much. 
It isn’t the only place in the world, and I was get- 
ting sick of it. I’ll go out and see what I can do 
after dinner.” 

His affectation of carelessness was not altogether 
successful ; he betrayed some trouble underneath 
it, and the tune he began to whistle died away as 
he walked to the window and gazed thoughtfully 
into the street. 

He went out immediately after dinner, and 
returned late, silent and uncommunicative, and 
sought his own room with only the brief explana- 
tion that he was tired. Mrs. Chester and Lizzie 
had not been hopeful and were not disappointed — 
were glad, indeed, that he returned quietly and not 
inebriated. 

The next day passed much as the afternoon had 
done. Kick’s “ plenty of places ” had existed only 
in his own imagination : he found not even one. 


TWO SEED-SOWINGS. 


53 


After two or three refusals he was discouraged and 
humiliated, ashamed to try elsewhere, and wan- 
dered about the streets in an aimless waiting for 
something to turn up. Then he abandoned his 
pretence of cheerfulness and remained at home for 
a time, inveighing against his fate and the world 
in general, that had consigned him to such a place 
as that with George Vance — that had not permitted 
him to study for a profession, as he had wished to 
do when a boy. And when his mood changed and 
he blamed only himself, pacing the floor in a storm 
of self-reproach and wishing he were dead and the 
world well rid of him, it was scarcely more endur- 
able to those who listened, but had no power to 
comfort him. There were periods of gloomy 
silence, and then a seeking of the streets again, 
oftentimes to return with a maudlin gayety that 
was the worst of all. 

Once while he was absent Mr. Vance called. 
He wished Mrs. Chester to comprehend the truth 
of the matter — that there had been no lack of 
friendliness on his part, and that it had been im- 
possible to retain Rick under the circumstances. 
Mrs. Chester understood only too clearly, and 
every word of the explanation was like a touch 
upon a quivering nerve, but she listened with en- 
forced calmness. Mr. Vance also explained, in 
the same explicit and straightforward way in which 
he would have spoken of casks and hogsheads, that 
he did not wish the family to be straitened or 


54 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


inconvenienced because of this, and with more 
generosity than delicacy drew forth his pocket- 
book and proposed to pay Rick’s salary to his 
mother. That, however, she very positively arid 
rather coldly declined. She could not accept what 
Rick had not earned, she said, but she did not tell 
him of how little value those earnings had been to 
her. 

Possibly it was because of that interview, or 
some troubled feeling awakened by it, that Mr. 
Vance, meeting Rick in the street a w T eek later, 
asked him if he wished to take his old place again. 

“If you choose to take it and fill it ” — a slight 
emphasis on the last two words — “you ma 7 come 
around whenever you like.” 

“Well,” answered Rick, hesitating a moment, 
“ I’ll come.” 

He made no promises for the future, he express- 
ed no gratitude; in truth, he did not feel any. 
Accepting the offer at all was a humiliating ne- 
cessity ; he did not know what else to do, and 
so rather sullenly agreed to return, but he private- 
ly resolved not to lose the place again. 

Mr. Vance walked on, waiting for no further 
words, and Rick turned homeward. Oddly enough, 
before he reached his destination Rick had reasoned 
himself into an entirely different frame of mind, 
and made his announcement at home with a vis- 
ible air of triumph : 

“Vance wants me back at the store again.” 

O 


TWO SEED-SOWINGS. 


55 


“Wants yon back?” Mother and sister both 
looked up. 

“ Yes. I met him on the street to-day, and he 
offered me the place — found he had made a bad 
bargain, I suppose. I rather thought a few days 
would make him wiser. It isn’t easy to pick up a 
stranger who can fill the place of one who knows 
every turn of the business.” 

“ Shall you go back ?” asked Lizzie, not quite 
agreeing with this view of the case, but prudently 
withholding her opinion. 

“ Yes ; I told him I’d come. If I can have an 
early dinner, Lizzie, I’ll go this afternoon.” 

Lizzie put aside her work to accede to this re- 
quest. However Rick might state the case, he was 
not altogether blind, she thought. He could not 
easily forget those three weeks of discouragement, 
gloom and pain, nor that they had been the result 
of his own wrong-doing; he surely would try to 
do better now, and brighter days might be dawning 
for them all. The hope gleamed in her eye and 
lightened her step ; and when her brother departed, 
she strove to impart it to her mother, whose sad, 
troubled look had not changed : 

“ Cheer up, mother dear ! He has work again, 
and everything will be better now.” 

The mother shook her head, her eyes full of 
tears. 

“I’m sure it will,” Lizzie persisted, kneeling by 
her mother’s side and putting her arm around her 


56 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


waist. “ Rick will not forget such a lesson as these 
last weeks have been ; he will do differently, if 
only for the sake of keeping his place ; and if he 
only can break away from those places for a time — ” 
The girl paused ; that hope had been disappointed 
so many times that she could not mention it con- 
fidently now. “ At any rate, it is better for him to 
be busy — far better than these last days have been,” 
she added. “ You are glad he is to have work 
again, mother?” 

“ Can I be, Lizzie? Ought I to be, when it is 
such work — helping to darken other homes, to 
make other mothers’ sons what mine has become?” 
the mother asked, mournfully. 

“ It isn’t a drinking-saloon,” Lizzie answered, 
startled and troubled by this new thought. 

“ No ; it is not a fountain : it is only a reservoir 
that feeds many fountains,” the mother answered. 
“ Oh, if I had never let him go there ! If I could 
have given him the chance to study, as he wished !” 

“ You could not do that; we were poor and had 
not the money. It was impossible. Rick himself 
saw that at the time. Do not reproach yourself 
with what you could not help,” pleaded Lizzie, 
longing to comfort. 

“ No, I could not do that, but I need not have 
assented to Mr. Vance’s offer. I might have wait- 
ed and sought other occupation for him. I did 
think of it; the business did trouble me a little; 
but the offer seemed kind. It was tempting, and I 


TWO SEED-SOWINGS. 


57 


said to myself what you have just said, that it was 
no saloon ; something entirely different from that — 
a wholesale establishment. So I yielded, and put 
the doubt away from me. I did not think of it as 
a mother, a Christian woman, should have thought; 
but I have had better cause for thinking since. I 
have not said so to Richard — I did not say so to- 
day — because I knew it would be worse than use- 
less now ; but I cannot be glad, Lizzie. Oh, the 
keenest pang of all this sorrow lately is the burden 
of my own guilt that is in it!” 

“If only such want of thought as yours can be 
called guilt, what of Mr. Vance? But he is pros- 
perous, happy and contented enough,” said Lizzie 
with a sudden bitterness. “ He has no sorrow; it 
has brought him no reward of trouble, his share in 
the business.” 

“ I do not know. Perhaps he never saw the sub- 
ject in such light as I have. I cannot judge him. 
I thought him very kind at the time ; I think still 
he meant only kindness to us,” Mrs. Chester an- 
swered, wearily. Then, as she saw Lizzie’s sad- 
dened face, she added, “This opening does not 
look like any door of hope to me, but I did not 
mean to add to your anxiety, dear child.” 

But her kiss could not banish the cloud from the 
girl’s brow nor solve the troubled, tangled questions 
that had found their way to the young conscience. 

Yet the home-life did brighten a little. For some 
days Rick went punctually and regularly to his 


58 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


work, and as steadily returned in the evening. 
Then, after the first week, he met some of his 
old companions and spent an evening with them ; 
soon another evening followed in the same way, 
and then his absences from home grew more fre- 
quent and his returning at nights irregular again. 
Yet still he held himself in such control that he 
was always promptly at his place in the morning, 
though by and by he began to compensate himself 
for this enforced check by wholly relaxing it when 
Saturday night came. The Sabbath grew into a 
day of dread to mother and sister. 


CHAPTER IV. 


A HARVEST OF WILD OATS . 

DREARY March afternoon had come, with 
clouded sky and slow, steady rain— a gray, 
cheerless afternoon, deepening early into 
night. Lizzie, glancing up from her sew- 
ing-machine, caught only a glimpse of drip- 
ping trees, glistening sidewalks, and occasionally a 
forlorn pedestrian. She scanned these last eagerly 
as the brief twilight faded, but Rick was not among 
them. 

The lamps were lighted, and the closing of the 
shutters seemed to shut him out and away from 
them. At last there was no excuse for keeping the 
simply-spread tea-table waiting longer. It was 
Saturday night, and would be like the Saturday 
nights before it; there was nothing else to expect, 
Lizzie whispered wearily to herself. They gather- 
ed about the table silently, a dispirited trio, even 
Mabel’s light-hearted ness vanquished by the storm 
without and the clouds within. No one felt like 
lingering long, and the sewing-machine resumed 
its monotonous clicking and Lizzie’s tired hands 



60 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


their work. Ruffle, plait and fold ! She wonder- 
ed vaguely, as the shining needle flew on, that any 
one should care for such things — that she had ever 
cared, they seemed to represent a life and world so 
far removed from her own. 

The long yards were finished at length, and the 
whirling wheel could stop, but the busy fingers 
must still keep on, adjusting, stitching, completing ; 
there were all the final details that no inanimate 
machine could accomplish. Mabel went away to 
bed, and the mother and Lizzie were left alone, 
each bending silently over her work, busy with 
thoughts that there could be no comfort in put- 
ting into words. How plainly every footfall sound- 
ed upon the pavement ! Not many were abroad in 
that retired street on such a night, and they listen- 
ed to every step that approached, waiting for it to. 
pause at their own door and sighing as it passed 
on. Lizzie completed her own sewing and took 
the work from her mother’s hand. 

“I will finish this,” she said. “Do not sit up 
any longer, mother darling; he may not come 
home to-night.” 

“ I know ; but I do not feel like sleeping yet — 
not just yet,” she answered. 

She said the same thing when Lizzie had finish- 
ed the garment and folded it up, but she added, 

“ Lie down a little while, dear, and rest, unless 
you will go to your own room and leave me. I 
will not wait much longer.” 


A HARVEST OF WILD OATS. 


61 


The girl was very tired, yet it was more from a 
desire to satisfy her mother than from any sense of 
her own weariness that she passed into the adjoin- 
ing room and threw herself upon the sofa. She 
did not feel like sleeping, either, she thought, press- 
ing her hands over her aching temples; and that 
was almost her last waking thought. It might 
have been something like the “ sleeping for sor- 
row” of which the sacred writers speak, but she 
sank at once into a heavy slumber. She did not 
hear the striking of the clock, the unsteady but 
hurried steps at the door, the voices in the next 
room and her mother’s low, startled cry. It was 
a hand on her forehead that aroused her: 

“ Lizzie ! Lizzie !” 

The door of communication between the two 
rooms was closed ; her mother stood beside her, a 
lamp in her trembling hand, her face white as if 
death had touched it. 

“ It has come, Lizzie, the worst — what I feared.” 

Lizzie started up, a question of terror on her 
trembling lips that found utterance in only one 
word : 

“ Rick?” 

“ Yes, he is here.” 

“Hurt? Not dead?” Lizzie interposed, quick- 
ly, trying involuntarily to read the face that told 
some story of horror faster than the white lips 
could find language. 

“No, alive, but the worst has happened. He 


62 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


has done a dreadful deed to-night. The officers 
may come for him any minute.” There was a 
strange, terrible calmness in the mother’s voice as 
she littered the slow sentences, at which the lis- 
tener shivered as at the words. “He quarreled 
with a companion and — killed him.” 

A cry, an inarticulate mingling of exclamation 
and prayer, broke from the girl’s lips. She cover- 
ed her eyes with a sickening fear and shrinking 
from the pitiless truth, and the world itself seem- 
ed reeling around her. 

“Lizzie, come!” said the strange yet familiar 
voice once more. 

She looked up, met her mother’s blanched, frozen 
face again, and followed her without a word, stun- 
ned, bewildered. 

Rick was in the other room, sitting by the fire, 
cowering over it almost, shaking now and then 
as if in an ague-fit. He looked up at his sister 
with an appealing, agonized glance as she entered, 
then around the room as if seeking some possible 
escape from the one overwhelming consciousness; 
He clasped and unclasped his hands, and Lizzie, 
glancing at the quivering interlacing fingers, saw, 
with a murmur of horror, dark-red stains upon 
them. Yet that sight aroused her ; it presented 
one possible thing to do and gave her the relief 
of action. She brought w T ater and bathed his face 
and hands. The same dark stains were upon his 
clothing, and she removed them with nervous 


A HARVEST OF WILD OATS. 


63 


haste. His handkerchief bore like marks. He 
drew it from his pocket, shuddered as he saw it, 
and dropped it; but Lizzie caught it up and threw 
it into the fire, not pausing to ask herself why she 
did so. 

Then hope, so slow to die, began to stir again. 
Might there not be some mistake? Was Rick 
sure? And, the first awful moments past, she 
found strength to question him. 

He had little to tell. He was sober now, but 
he had not been so earlier, and his first memories 
were confused. They had all been talking and 
drinking together, and then some quarrel had 
arisen. Ross said something that angered him ; he 
scarcely knew what — about his going back to 
Vance’s store, he believed ; the others parted 
them. Then he started for home, and as he went 
out the door Ross followed him and caught him by 
the shoulder. He wrenched himself away, picked 
up a stone, struck Ross with it, and Ross fell. It 
all happened in a moment. 

“And you are sure — You know — ” Lizzie 
asked, unable to utter that which should complete 
the question. 

“ I saw him fall, I felt the warm drops on my 
hand, and I knew everything then; I don’t re- 
member before. The others ran out and carried 
him in. I stood in the door and watched when 
they laid him down. He did not breathe ; they 
said so. If they could have been mistaken ! Oh, 


64 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


I would give my life to have it a mistake ! — to 
have it one hour ago !” cried Rick, his anguished 
eyes turning toward the clock, as if it might be 
possible for the onflowing tide of time to turn back 
just one little hour — only far enough to leave this 
last deed undone. 

But the clock ticked steadily on — the old clock 
that had told every hour since Rick’s infancy. 
Some dreamy, indefinite thought of that flitted 
through the mother’s brain as she too glanced up 
at the evenly-moving hands. Through every 
hour, sweet or sad, they had been always hasten- 
ing on to this. And they kept all they gathered : 
that one little hour ago was as utterly beyond recall 
as though it had been in the far-gone centuries. 

“ Did any one see? Did they know who struck 
him ?” Lizzie questioned, her voice dropping into 
a husky whisper. 

“Yes, they saw us go out; they all knew.” 
Rick answered the question mechanically, as if he 
did not comprehend its meaning. 

Lizzie herself scarcely knew why she had asked 
it, what it was she had meant or hoped — if she had * 
hoped anything. There was nothing more to be 
done, nothing to be said. They were grouped about 
the fire in a strange silence. She noticed oddly 
enough, even in that supreme moment, that the 
hearth-rug was awry, that Rick’s head cast a pecu- 
liar shadow on the wall. She questioned as one 
wondering at herself why her reason held its place ; 



A Harvest of Wild Oats. 


Page 65. 


i 





















































A HARVEST OF WILD OATS. 


65 


whether she should not awaken presently and find 
it all a horrible dream. In the eastern sky a band 
of gray began to show along the horizon; the 
morning was coming. “As they that watch for 
the morning.” The familiar words drifted slowly 
into her consciousness, and some influence linked 
with them lifted her tortured soul in prayer — no 
distinct thought, no definite petition, but every 
breath a swift appealing cry heavenward. 

A loud, heavy knock at the door resounded 
through the house. The mother bowed her head 
upon her hands and Kick started and shuddered. 
Lizzie sprang to her feet, looking from one to the 
other, but neither spoke. Her first wild impulse 
was to double lock the door, to refuse admittance 
to any one, but the uselessness of such a course 
revealed itself before she reached the hall; and 
trembling in every limb, she opened the door. 
She knew who stood there — knew it before she saw 
the two strangers whose gilt-banded caps and glit- 
tering stars proclaimed their errand. 

“ Is Richard Chester here ?” 

But they saw him through the open door, and 
pressed past her into the room without waiting for 
the answer she could not have given. She looked 
out into the street with a sudden longing to flee 
anywhere to escape from it all, from the knowledge 
of what had happened. Then she turned and 
followed the officers into the room. Rick had 
arisen, and one stood with his hand resting on his 
5 


66 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


prisoner’s shoulder. There was no resistance ; the 
thought of flight did not cross Kick’s mind ; his 
imploring eyes were only searching the stranger’s 
face for information. 

“ He is dead ?” he asked, huskily. 

“ Koss ? No ; he’s breathing, but insensible. No 
chance for him, the doctor says. Better be careful 
how you ask questions, my lad,” the man answered, 
gruffly, but not unkindly. 

“ Come !” the other said, shortly. That also was 
not in unkindness, as a swift pitying glance at the 
two women showed. 

Kick slowly drew on his overcoat and took up 
his hat. Lizzie brought his scarf and wound it 
around his neck, raised her lips to his in a silent 
kiss, and paused with her hands upon his shoul- 
ders, looking into his eyes with a strange, steadfast 
look that held a promise in it. Then she dropped 
her arms and let him go without a word. As the 
street door clanged a long, sobbing breath fluttered 
over the mother’s lips, and she sank back fainting. 

Lizzie bathed her head and chafed her hands, 
shrinking while she did so from the cruel task of’ 
restoring her to consciousness, and not daring to be 
glad when at last the eyes unclosed again. So the 
morning came. Pale, rosy flushes began to brighten 
the first gray dawn and faint sounds of awakening 
life stirred the outer world. Smoke began to curl 
from neighboring chimneys. In an adjacent yard 
a colored woman came out to the hydrant, singing 


mm 

A HARVEST OF WILD OATS. - 67 

a wild, weird hymn learned on some Southern 
plantation — a hymn of the judgment-day : 

“My Lord, what a morning 
When the stars are a-falling!” 

Lizzie shuddered at the words ; they suited this 
awful morning, unlike any other that ever had 
dawned. Yet the sun came up by and by, bright 
and clear, sweeping away all the clouds of the night 
and making a broad golden path even into that 
smitten home. He pointed out the little daily 
cares that must' still be taken up — the furniture 
placed in order, the hearth swept. Mabel came 
down from her peaceful sleep, saw with quick in- 
stinct that something was wrong, and, learning what 
it was useless to attempt to keep from her, gazed at 
her sister in unbelieving astonishment. Then, as 
she gradually comprehended, she burst into a tor- 
rent of childish tears, and sobbed and moaned as 
if her heart would break. 

The church- bells began to chime. It was the 
Sabbath morning. The sound of passing feet on 
the sidewalk grew more frequent. Other families 
— happy families — were on their way to church. 

“And the world’s just as it w^as, only we!” said 
poor little Mabel in the surprise of her grief as she 
gazed with swollen eyes at the passers-by, and 
could not understand how others could be happy 
still. 

Tidings of the night’s occurrence spread rapidly, 


68 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


and some kind acquaintances, longing to manifest 
their sympathy, called and offered any service in 
their power. “ But it’s not like sickness or death 
in a family. What can any one do ?” whispered 
one to her companion as they went away. Mr. 
Vance came, shocked and troubled, anxious to es- 
cape from the mother’s haunting gaze even while he 
sought to comfort her. They must not give way to 
this, he said. Matters might not be so bad, after 
all. It was always best to look on the bright side. 
Nothing was proven as yet. 

“ Kick does not deny the deed,” Lizzie answered, 
hopelessly. 

“ Oh, well, I’d be careful how I mentioned that,” 
Mr. Vance replied, nervously, glancing around the 
room to make sure that no strangers were present. 
“At any rate, the man is not dead yet — may set 
well ; the doctors don’t always know. It’s always 
best to look on the bright side. I’ll see that Rick 
has help enough, any way — the very best counsel 
that can be obtained. You need have no trouble 
about that. I’ll tell him so myself. Perhaps I’d 
better see him at once.” 

“I wish you would go to him,” Lizzie said, with 
the thought that a familiar face and voice might 
bring at least a brief respite from his own despair- 
ing thoughts to poor desolate Rick. 

“Well, I will, and I’ll come back toward even- 
ing and let you know how he is. We must all 
cheer up. It may turn out not so bad, after all — 


A HARVEST OF WILD OATS. 


69 


only a sort of lesson. Rick is a good fellow. I 
always felt he’d turn out well when once he’d 
sown his wild oats.” 

Fearful sowing, that had brought so early a har- 
vest as this! But Mr. Vance hurried away with a 
feeling of relief at finding something that he could 
do, and also because it was something which took 
him away. He tried persistently during all his 
walk to look only on the bright side, but it must 
have been hard to do so when he met Rick and in 
the interview, of which he gave an account after- 
ward. It was with a slower, more reluctant step 
that he returned to the house in the afternoon. 

Richard was well and needed nothing; he would 
see that all possible arrangements for his comfort 
were made, he said, and then paused, as if there 
were something still untold — something that even 
his ready tongue shrank from uttering. 

“And the one who was hurt? Mr. Ross?” 
asked Lizzie, eagerly yet tremblingly. “ Have 
you heard anything?” 

His eyes dropped, and the answer came unwill- 
ingly : 

“Yes; he died an hour ago.” 

Poor Lizzie! Until then she had not known 
how much hope she had gathered from Mr. Vance’s 
words of the morning. 

“Nothing can save him now from the guilt of 
murder ! Oh, my brother !” The cry broke from 
her lips involuntarily. 


70 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


Mr. Vance started. 

“ There was no premeditation, no intention of 
such a thing ; there could not have been. A ten- 
der-hearted fellow like him ! Why, I\ T e known 
him to pick lip a lame kitten in the street and 
bring it into the store lest it should be run over,” 
he said, hurriedly, with a furtive glance toward the 
sofa, where the mother lay motionless. “He shall 
have every advantage — the best counsel that can be 
procured.” 

But it was only of the awful fact, not of its con- 
sequences, that Lizzie was thinking then. 

“Does he know?” she asked. 

Mr. Vance nodded. It was hard to answer such 
questions; he scarcely knew why so much of the 
unwelcome task had fallen to him. It was hard 
also to be obliged to tell the whole story over again 
when he reached home, and to recall the details he 
would gladly forget, even without his wife’s half- 
fretful concluding comment: 

“ It’s dreadful ! I wish you’d never taken him 
into your store, and I wish you had never had such 
a store to take any one into.” 

It was hard ; Mr. Vance assured himself that it 
was during some wakeful hours that night. Why 
must women make such unreasonable remarks 
whenever they were worried ? and that mother’s 
eyes had said as much, and more. He had meant 
only kindness to the boy when he had offered him 
the situation. Was it any fault of his that what 


A HARVEST OF WILD OATS. 


71 


he had intended for a benefit had been turned into 
an evil ? Who knew that it would have been any 
different if the boy had taken his place in a dry- 
goods or grocery store ? And if it would, what 
then? Was that a reason for giving up a profit- 
able business? Did railroad companies stop their 
trains because some careless people were crushed 
under the wheels? Did workshops close because 
some one now and then met with an accident in 
their machinery? or hardware-dealers abandon 
their occupation because some foolhardy individ- 
ual bought a pistol and used it to blow his own 
brains out? Preposterous! 

Yet Mr. Vance rehearsed this old argument of 
his numerous times that night before he could make 
it seem clear and lucid or assume anything like its 
usual force, and he was not sorry when the morn- 
ing came to bring the hurry of business and banish 
fancies. It was certainly easier to discover the 
bright side of some things by daylight. 

To the little house on the other street and to 
Rick in his solitary cell, watching for the first time 
a day-dawn through iron bars, the morning brought 
no such relief. 


CHAPTER V. 



RIGHT ABOUT FACE! 

RS. HALROYD’S carriage stopped again 
at the Chesters’ on the Monday morning 
succeeding that dark Sabbath. Once more 
that subtle vibrant chord of sympathy drew 
her there. Kind, pitying she would have 
been to any sorrow; but though she had learned to 
feel a warm regard for the Chesters, it was that new 
peculiar tenderness toward sufferers from such cause 
as theirs that impelled her to seek them. She knew 
of no assistance she could render, but she assured 
Lizzie that some sewing of hers which had been 
promised for a certain time was of little conse- 
quence and might be delayed indefinitely, and her 
look and tone, the pressure of her hand and her 
earnest eyes, that grew suddenly tearful, were more 
grateful to the sore hearts than words could have 
been. 

“ Oh, Max, those two faces were so unutterably 
sad !” she said to her husband that evening;. “ It 

<D 

makes my heart ache to remember them. Just 
think ! The only son and brother, and so young !” 


“ Yes, I 

72 


know about it,” General ITalroyd 


BIGHT ABOUT FACE! 


73 


answered, gravely. “I have taken the case; Mr. 
Vance came to me. It is a sad affair.” 

“ You have seen young Chester, then ?” 

“ Yes. I have not talked much with him. He 
had only just learned of Ross’s death, and was so 
crushed by the announcement that it was no time 
to discuss the probable consequences to himself or 
gain any fair understanding of the matter.” 

“ There is no doubt of his guilt?” 

“None whatever, I fear. A preliminary exam- 
ination has committed him for trial, but the evi- 
dence seems only too positive.” 

“What can you do for him, then, if you do 
undertake his defence?” 

The general smiled at the unlawyerlike ques- 
tion : 

“ I cannot say, my dear — not very much, I am 
afraid. But the doing of such a deed has infinite 
gradations, from the willful and malicious down to 
the accidental, or even justifiable; and in every case 
the accused has a right to have every provocation 
brought to light, every extenuating circumstance 
urged in his behalf. I will do my best.” 

“And the best you hope for is — what?” she 
asked with eager interest. 

“ I am not very hopeful from anything I know 
of the case now — I have not studied it yet, remem- 
ber; but I do not think he can anticipate a less 
penalty than years of imprisonment.” 

“ Years of imprisonment, and he so young ! Oh, 


74 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


that poor mother and sister !” Mrs. Halrovd cried, 
pityingly. “ Oh, Max, it is hard !” 

“ It does seem hard,” he answered, thoughtfully, 
“to look on such a young, strong, intelligent man, 
and think that the best years of his life must be 
doomed by the act of one mad moment — a mo- 
ment when he was crazed by drink and scarcely 
knew what he was doing. But then there was the 
other, a young man also, and stricken suddenly out 
of life, and perhaps another mother and sister too, 
Ariel ; I do not know. Society must protect itself, 
and the law knows justice, and not pity.” 

“How much sorrow intoxicating liquor causes ! 
It seems to me I never noticed until lately,” she 
said. 

“Yes; three- fourths of all the crime, I pre- 
sume.” 

“ I wish you did not use it, Max. I wish you 
would never taste it again,” she cried. 

He was silent for a moment; he had not ex- 
pected the conversation to turn so pointedly home- 
ward. 

“Afraid I shall murder some one?” he asked, 
covering with his own the slender hand resting 
tremblingly on his shoulder. 

“ No, not that.” 

“ That I shall disgrace you by being found in 
a gutter some night?” 

“Oh, Max!” half indignantly. “No,” hesitat- 
ingly, “not that — nothing like that.” 


RIGHT ABOUT FACE! 


75 


She could not tell what she really did fear, 
and yet there was a fear, a steadily-increasing bur- 
den of apprehension, for this beloved one, pressing 
upon her heart. 

“No, I do not think you need fear any such 
consequences,” he said, slowly. “ I am not likely 
to acquire any excessive, uncontrollable appetite — 
and it is that which ruins men, Ariel — for that to 
which I have been accustomed all my life. I have 
been used to it from my boyhood ; my father al- 
ways had it on his table. I do not say that it was 
the best way — I think now that it was not; but it 
was his way, and so I became habituated to its use. 
I might have been as well without it; but having 
used such a stimulant always, I should miss it now 
as I should colfee, or — more.” 

The general was honest, and he added that last 
word because he suddenly realized that his conclud- 
ing sentence would be no near approach to truth 
without it. 

“ I was not thinking of that, but only that it is 
a danger — a wrong — that seems always sooner or 
later to bring trouble or sorrow,” she urged. 

“ True in many cases, my dear — in most, per- 
haps, where it is an appetite suddenly formed, as I 
said. Train up Harold as carefully as you will — 
we’ll make a temperance-lecturer of him if you 
wish— but I’m growing too ancient to right about 
face so suddenly : almost forty, you know. It isn’t 
easy for a hurried man of business to change life- 


76 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


long habits so easily. Besides, I have no love for 
it; it is only that I need it and am used to it.” 

Nevertheless, that being used to it meant more 
than he cared to acknowledge. The mere taste of 
the liquor he did not crave — its stimulation he did ; 
and he had become so dependent upon it that he 
felt unlike himself without it. He needed some- 
thing to tone him up, he said ; but he knew that 
this “toning-up” process required more stimulant 
now than it formerly did, that his nerves and brain 
demanded a steadily-increasing quantity to pro- 
duce t£ie desired effect, and that his discomfort 
when deprived of it was proportionately increased. 
He thought more deeply upon the subject than he 
had spoken. He would gladly have given it up for 
Ariel’s sake, but he was too proud to own the weak- 
ness he felt. 

Was there any danger? He was always quite 
himself — a little dizzy and bewildered for a few 
minutes sometimes, but it passed away speedily, 
and left no effects but the slight exhilaration, the 
pleasant excitement, that seemed to brace his nerves 
and lend strength for the day’s duties. “ Lend 
strength !” The general was considering the mat- 
ter as he walked to his office the next morning;, and 

o/ 

he paused at the word his own thought had inad- 
vertently supplied. Was it only borrowed strength ? 
and could a man be always himself when he was 
relying upon such fictitious aid for his ability to 
work? Nonsense ! As much might be said against 


RIGHT ABOUT FACE! 


77 


any tonic. He certainly was far more like himself 
with it than in the relaxed, unnerved condition 
in which he sometimes found himself without it. 

By that time he had reached his office and found 
an anxious client in waiting, and he soon forgot 
the whole subject in the business of the day. But 
his wife, watching him from the window until he 
was out of sight, had bowed her head upon her 
hands then and whispered, 

“ I would give anything — anything ! — to free 
him from that one chain.” 

But the general had forgotten it; it was crowded 
out through all the busy hours, and the next morn- 
ing also, when a hurried message summoned him 
to a neighboring town. He stopped at a saloon 
near the depot, but he was thinking of the business 
to be transacted at the end of his journey, and not 
of Ariel's fears, as he ordered his usual stimulant. 
A trifle stronger than usual it proved. So much 
the better; he had taken but a slight breakfast, 
and there was a disagreeable ride before him that 
raw morning. 

The shriek of the steam-whistle hastened his 
steps, and he entered a car. It was nearly filled 
with passengers, most of them wearing the tired 
look of those who had passed a night on the train, 
but he found a seat not far from the stove, and in 
a moment the train was speeding on again. What 
a depressing morning it was! Outside a thick 
mist hung heavily over the river, veiling all the 


78 


OLD PORTMANTEA U. 


landscape, and within were only the weary peo- 
ple. There was a disagreeable sensation in the 
general’s head ; his ideas grew confused ; he could 
not think clearly. When the doors were closed, 
the heat of the stove soon grew oppressive, and he 
decided to go out upon the platform and shake off 
the stupor in the open air. It was a work of some 
difficulty, for the cars seemed to rock unusually, 
but he reached the door and passed out. The air 
was chill and damp, not refreshing. There might 
be a more comfortable seat in the next car, he 
thought, and he attempted to step from one plat- 
form to the other, but he staggered, slipped, made 
an unavailing grasp at the railing, and would have 
fallen between the cars had not a strong hand 
seized him and with a violent effort drawn him 
back. 

“ Are you drunk or crazy ?” demanded a quick, 
excited voice. The conductor was himself pale 
from his own exertion and the narrow escape. 
“ You’d have been crushed to death in an instant 
more! Don’t try that again.” 

General Halroyd looked at him and murmured 
some incoherent words of thanks. It was a minute 
before he could stand steadily upon his feet again, 
and then he returned to his seat in the car. He 
watched no more through the window for the lift- 
ing of the fog, nor glanced at the travelers around 
him, but with hat drawn low over his eyes sat 
quite still. “ Drunk or crazy?” The question 


RIGHT ABOUT FACE! 


79 


repeated itself. He had been the first. He could 
think clearly enough now, and he shuddered as he 
thought. How near he had been to an awful death, 
and from what a cause ! But for that strong res- 
cuing hand — His vivid, excited imagination 
filled out all the blank with startling distinctness 
and painted the scene in all its minute, horrible 
details. He seemed to see the stopping of the 
train and the gathering of a group of passengers 
around a lifeless, crushed, mutilated something that 
had once been himself. How the shocked, horrified 
faces would have paled and turned away ! and they 
would have asked the conductor’s question. 

What tidings for Ariel ! — intoxicated and fell 
under the cars ! Even if it had all been veiled by 
the vague word “accident,” would she not have 
understood intuitively why the brain had reeled 
and the step faltered ? His wife a widow, his boy 
fatherless, from such a cause ! He could not shake 
off the painful vision and think of the danger as 
wholly j>ast. He had faced death on the battle- 
field — horrible death for a noble cause — but that 
had not been like this. But for another’s quick, 
steady hand he had been — where? He did not 
often think — this busy and successful lawyer — of 
the higher than all human law and the great tri- 
bunal above all earthly courts, but he thought of 
them long and seriously that day as he rode silent- 
ly on with his shaded face resting on his hand, and 
he shuddered again and again as he thought of 


80 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


reeling intoxicated out into the unknown eternity 
to meet all its solemn realities. 

Never again would he risk such a fate, never 
again should it be possible; that resolution took 
firm possession of him. It was no evanescent 
emotion, no fitful impulse, but a deep, enduring 
purpose, fixed and strengthened in his soul by 
prayer and vow and by that new, strange outlook 
into the life beyond. 

All day, through all business transactions, that 
deep seriousness lingered about him ; and when he 
returned to the city in the evening, he paused on 
his homeward way and entered a brightly-lighted 
hall. A small audience had gathered there; it was 
a weekly temperance-meeting. There were two or 
three brief addresses and a little music. The gen- 
eral did not linger long. He read over the pledge 
slowly and carefully, and then deliberately signed 
it. Some who knew him watched him curiously. 
The general was never known to be intoxicated, 
but he had certainly been considered opposed to 
total abstinence in practice as well as in theory ; 
and now, in a time when there was no especial en- 
thusiasm upon the subject, when no known induce- 
ment or persuasion had been used, he walked quiet- 
ly in and joined them. They wondered what had 
wrought the change, but they were left to their 
wondering ; for though the president of the society, 
recovering from his first surprise, warmly welcomed 
the new member and asked for “ a few remarks,” 


RIGHT ABOUT FACE! 


81 


the general declined. Not this evening ; another 
time, perhaps. 

He wanted to talk with Ariel. Even to her it 
was not easy to tell all the story. With her by his 
side and his child’s clinging arms about his neck, 
the vision grew more dim and unreal. It scarcely 
seemed possible that there might have been such 
tidings instead of his familiar home-coming. He 
dreaded to bring even the shadow of that “ might 
have been ” to his home, and yet he wanted his 
wife to know, to share in this new experience that 
had touched him so closely and grown from some- 
thing awful into something sacred. He waited un- 
til little Harold had fallen asleep, but in the mean 
while his wife’s watchful eyes had studied his face, 
and as soon as the child was sent away she came 
and sat down on the sofa beside him : 

“ Tired to-night, dear?” 

“ No — yes — a little, I believe, now I think of it. 
It has been a busy day.” 

* “Are you troubled, then ? What is it, Max ?” 

“ Why do you think there is anything unusual ?” 
he asked, smiling at love’s keen perception. 

“ I do not think, I know it : from your face or 
voice — I cannot tell how. What is it, Max ?” she 
persisted. 

“Not troubled now, only thoughtful. Ariel, I 
have concluded to ‘ right about face,’ after all, on 
that temperance question.” 

A quick light flashed over her face. 


82 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“ You will not use liquor? Do you mean that 
you will try to give it up yourself?” she ques- 
tioned. 

“Not try to do so; I have given it up. I 
stopped on my way home to you, Ariel, and 
signed a solemn pledge to that effect.” 

The light brightened in her eyes, but she fixed 
them upon him still questioningly, and did not 
speak. He drew her head down upon his shoulder 
and told her the story of the morning — all, even to 
the thoughts of that long hour’s ride. She listened, 
only showing her intense interest by her tighten- 
ing clasp upon his hand, until he had concluded. 
Then, with a rush of tears, came the murmured 
“ Thank God !” 

The thanksgiving was for a double deliverance 
— a double blessing ; and as Ariel closed her eyes 
that night she whispered, “ The only cloud has 
vanished from my sky.” She thought her world 
could know no more sorrow, forgetting that never 
of earth was it promised, “All tears shall be wiped 
away.” 

General Halroyd fortified himself with a cup of 
strong coffee the next morning, and did not stop, 
as was his wont, on his way down town. He felt 
languid and weary when he reached his office. The 
boy who usually swept the room had not been there, 
and the place was disordered and uninviting. Piles 
of books and papers lay upon the table ; the day’s 
work was waiting, but the general felt little incli- 


BIGHT ABOUT FACE! 


83 


nation to undertake it. He leaned back in his 
chair and surveyed it with a rather sad smile. 

There was a slight noise at the door. A key 
was pushed in at the keyhole until it met the one 
already there, and then the door was pushed open 
and an odd little figure appeared — a short, plump 
little damsel with head covered with a scarlet shawl, 
from which brilliant frame looked forth a round 
brown face crowned with a fringe of short, stiff 
black hair, and adorned with a pair of small twink- 
ling gray eyes and a decidedly pug nose. 

“ You’re here, sir? I didn’t expect you,” re- 
marked the new comer with a queer little bob 
intended for a curtsey. 

“ Nor I you.” The general laughed at the sud- 
den appearance and observation together. “ The 
surprise is mutual.” 

“ I’m Phrony, sir.” 

“ Indeed ? What can 1 do for you ?” 

“ Nothing, sir; it’s me that’s goin’ to do it for 
you. I’m Ted’s sister;” and she produced a 
broom. 

“Ah?” The general comprehended. Ted was 
his office-boy. “So you have come to sweep? 
Why didn’t Ted come himself?” 

“ Why, his nose was that smashed up that he 
couldn’t — leastways, not respectable. It’s got a 
strip of plaster on it p’intways an’ another cross- 
ways, an’ he looks like the head on a postage stamp 
when the postmaster’s crossed it,” explained Miss 


84 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


Phrony, earnestly. “ Boys is awful, to always be 
a-slidin’, an’ he went a-slidin’ down a board that was 
all frosty this mornin’, an’ pitched onto his nose; 
it was a blessin’ ’twasn’t the spine of his back, 
for noses ain’t no great account only to poke into 
things. Leastways, that’s what boys generally use 
’em for where they’d oughtn’t to. So I told him 
I’d come an’ sweep for him, but he didn’t s’pose 
you’d be here, an’ I didn’t s’pose you’d be here; 
an’ I’m sorry it’s late, sir.” 

“ Never mind this time; we must make allow- 
ance for accidents,” said the general, kindly. “ You 
may sweep the back office first, and then this one.” 

He watched her with an amused smile as she 
moved about with a brisk, business-like air, doing 
her work thoroughly and well. 

“ You are an orderly little girl,” he said, by way 
of compliment. 

“ I’m fifteen,” replied Phrony with dignity. 

“Ah? I beg your pardon! Nearly a young 
woman. Ted told me he had no mother, I think. 
You are the housekeeper, I suppose?” 

“Well, it’s a little mixed,” said Phrony, medita- 
tively brushing the fender. “There’s Maria an’ 
there’s me, an’ it’s sort of between us. She’s the 
oldest, but I’m the toughest, an’ she’s the tallest, 
but I’m the thickest, an’ so it’s between us ; an’ 
we keep house together, ’long of Ted an’ Dan an’ 
little Jimsey.” 

“ Three boys on your hands ! I hope they won’t 


RIGHT ABOUT FACE! 


85 


run wild. You must try to keep them steady,” 
advised the general. 

“ Steady !” exclaimed Phrony, considering the 
word in the one sense in which she understood it. 
“ You may be sure I’ll try to do that, if it takes 
every bone in my body. I guess there won’t be 
no danger of their goin’ tipsy, ’cause they’ve had 
learnin’ enough on that if they hain’t on nothin’ 
else. Why, Old Portmanteau boards at our house 
— that is, he has rooms up stairs in the same house 
when he’s to home, an’ that ain’t often ; but our 
house is nigh about carpeted with temperance tracts 
and such.” 

“ It might have a worse carpet,” smiled the 
general. “ Hold fast to your resolution, Miss 
Phrony. What do you do to support your 
family ?” 

“ Me, sir ? Oh, I go out for day’s work here an’ 
there — sweep in', scrubbin’ an’ such — where families 
need help.” 

He leaned back in his chair and watched her 
again while she continued her work. Her sweep- 
ing was a different operation from Teddy’s rather 
clumsy and careless efforts in that line; and when 
completed, she followed it by dusting books and 
chairs. 

“ That is extra ; Teddy doesn’t dust,” observed 
the general. 

u Boys never see dust, not even if it’s an inch 
thick,” replied Phrony, her pug nose taking a still 


86 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


higher elevation in a sniff of contempt for the class 
mentioned. 

"But I like my office dusted. Suppose you 
come with Teddy hereafter, superintend his sweep- 
ing, and then do the dusting ?” suggested the gen- 
eral. He had taken a fancy to the odd, brisk, neat 
little maiden, and saw, moreover, an opportunity 
to do a kindness. 

“ Every day ? for pay ?” questioned Phrony 
with a keen eye to business, as became the head of 
a needy family. 

“ Certainly. I think it will be worth about fifty 
cents a week. Will that be satisfactory ?” 

Phrony ’s gray eyes sparkled : 

“ Yes, sir. And won’t I put that to Maria when 
I get home ! You see, Maria, she does the dole- 
fuls for our family, and I does the cheerfuls; so 
when Teddy come in, she says, ‘ There ! now 
he’s got hurt, and he’ll lose his place,’ and says 
I, ‘No, he won’t, ’cause I’ll go myself; and it’s a 
mercy it’s his nose, and not the spine of his back.’ 
‘ It’s just our bad luck, his gettin’ hurt at all,’ she 
says ; and I says, ‘ Mebbe it’ll be the best kind of a 
fortune yet;’ and she just says, ‘I’d like to see any 
good come of it.’ So now I’ll just put that fifty 
cents a week to her and ask her if that don’t be 
some good from a smashed nose. I don’t see no 
sense in fretting at a thing ’fore you come to the 
end of it, ’cause you can’t tell how it’s going to 
turn out ; and when you have come to the end of 


RIGHT ABOUT FACE! 


87 


it, then there’s no sense in fretting, ’cause it’s over 
and done with.” 

“ That’s a cheerful philosophy,” laughed the 
general. “ Does Maria work too ?” 

“ Oh, she sews. She says it ain’t genteel to do 
my kind of work, so she does sewing for folks; 
she can do it real good. But I don’t see what 
makes a needle more genteel than a broom, unless 
’cause it’s slimmer; and if that’s all, a barber- 
pole’d be genteeler than a church. I don’t under- 
stand about such things, but I s’pose Maria does. 
Well, sir, I’ll come to-morrow, and ’bliged to you ;” 
and pinning on her scarlet shawl, Phrony dropped 
her little bobbing curtsey again and vanished. 

The general looked after her with something like 
a sigh ; he envied the small maiden her buoyant 
energy that morning. He drew his chair to the 
table and turned over books and papers; he had 
expected this lassitude and enervation, and he must 
do battle with it. He took up a pen and began to 
write, marking the while how his hand trembled. 
Thinking was wearisome work; his head ached, 
and he often paused to rest. After an hour or two 
he went out for a walk in the open air; but all the 
day, reading, writing, conversing with clients or 
chatting with acquaintances, the same languor op- 
pressed him. Study was a burden and the day 
unsatisfactory. 

“And all because of missing that one thing! 
What a sin and shame to have ever yielded to 


88 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


such slavery !” he mused as he turned wearily 
homeward at evening. 

The same weakness and weariness hung about 
him still the next day and the next, though he 
struggled with all his proud will to overcome it. 
Every effort was the result of that compelling will, 
every exertion burdensome. 

“ I suppose this will pass in a short time. I 
shall be strong again after a while,” he repeated 
frequently by way of persuading himself to pa- 
tience with himself. 

But presently he began to wonder how long the 
time would be ; and as day after day passed and 
there was no improvement, he at last sought medi- 
cal counsel. 

“Hm ! Want of vigor; whole system in an un- 
usually relaxed condition,” commented the phy- 
sician, with finger upon his pulse. “ What have 
you been doing lately ?” 

“Not much.” 

“ It doesn’t promise any great amount of energy. 
Have you made any change in your habits of work 
or life? Anything — ” 

“ I have abandoned the use of liquor. I suppose 
that is the cause of this present weakness,” the gen- 
eral interposed. 

“Ah !” The doctor’s perplexed face cleared. 
“That’s the trouble. Why, you have been ac- 
customed to the use of stimulants for a long time, 
haven’t you, general ? You don’t need medicines. 


RIGHT ABOUT FACE! 


89 


Take a moderate quantity of liquor daily, and you 
will be all right again.” 

“I presume so— or at least more comfortable 
physically than I am now; but that is the very 
thing I do not wish to do.” 

“ Total abstinence, eh? Well, but you see, gen- 
eral, your constitution will not stand such a violent 
change. You must accustom yourself to it gradu- 
ally ;” and the doctor smiled complacently as he 
thought how much a man might know of the laws 
of his country, while he knew nothing of the laws 
of hygiene. 

“ Doctor, I have signed a total-abstinence 
pledge,” said the general, gravely. 

“Ah, yes! That is all right; but keep the 
spirit of it and don’t press the letter too strong- 
ly. That is the trouble. You don’t need drugs.” 

“ Keep a promise gradually by breaking it con- 
stantly ?” The general shook his head. 

“ But if you have found the experiment does not 
succeed ?” suggested the doctor. 

“It is not an experiment, it is a vow.” 

The general went away in nowise benefited, but 
with a peculiar smile upon his lips. 

“Word of honor and solemn vow, and that is 
his idea of keeping it!” he said. 


CHAPTER VI. 


UNDER SENTENCE. 

Sb 

ENERAL HALROYD’S interest in Rich- 
ard Chester deepened as he saw more of him 
and held as his lawyer frequent interviews 
with him ; his interest in his case intensified, 
and by its very hold upon him stimulated 
his failing strength. All his skill and energy was 
devoted to it, though the slowly-revealed facts ren- 
dered it still unpromising. 

In the dreary days of suspense before the trial 
Lizzie saw her brother often. Mrs. Chester rallied 
so slowly from the prostration of the first terrible 
shock that she could not go to him, but Lizzie, for 
whom access had been obtained through the kind- 
ness of others, went frequently, growing used in 
time — as, alas ! we all can grow used to the saddest 
things — to arrange for these visits to the jail as 
among her regular round of duties. Only a duty ; 
not all her longing to comfort her brother, or her 
love, that would willingly have sacrificed herself for 
his sake, could make those visits to one so despond- 
ing and tempest-tossed even a mournful solace to 
the faithful sister. 



90 


UNDER SENTENCE. 


91 


He had gradually grown thin, worn and hag- 
gard ; he paced his narrow cell until utterly ex- 
hausted, and then, throwing himself upon the 
couch prepared for him there, lay for hours motion- 
less. Lizzie carried to him delicate dishes from 
home, and he put them away almost untasted. 
Sometimes she carried books and tried to make 
the long hours drag less heavily by reading, but 
even while she read aloud she was conscious that 
the page could not enchain her own thoughts, and 
that to Rick the words were only an unmeaning 
sound ; she knew, also, that when she left the 
books with him they remained untouched. Once 
she attempted to read to him from the Bible, but 
he stopped her with an impatient “ Don’t, Lizzie !” 
when he saw what volume she held. The utmost 
hope that the future held for him was so dark a 
thing that she could not talk of it, while there 
were possibilities so dread that she dared not even 
think of them, so there fell into those wretched 
interviews long silences. 

“ If I could only forestall that miserable trial !” 
he muttered, despairingly, one day. “ Lizzie, if 
you really want to help me — to do me the greatest, 
only service that you can ever render me now — 
contrive some way to bring me something that will 
end it all.” 

“ End it all ?” she repeated, uncomprehend- 
ingly. 

“ A little something added in one of those 


92 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


dishes.” He lowered his voice and pointed sig- 
nificantly to the cup she held. “ A little powder 
slipped into your sleeve — you could manage it 
easily enough — and it would be all done, and bet- 
ter for all of us.” Then, as she shrank in horror, 
he added vehemently, “Oh, you shrink from that! 
You won’t do that, the only real kindness you 
could show me ! What would it be but saving peo- 
ple a deal of trouble, leaving an empty cell for some 
other miserable wretch ? Just erasing from the 
world such a blot as my life has been — that is 
all.” 

“ No, it is not all,” Lizzie said, with the tears 
raining over her pale face. “ Oh, Rick, is your 
sin so light that you can add to it the guilt of self- 
murder ? Is the judgment-bar of God so much less 
terrible than that of man that you dare seek it un- 
summoned ? Is eternity so much shorter than time 
that you would brave all the darkness it may hold 
rather than face what may await you here ? End 
it all ! In my very soul I believe it would be to 
you but the beginning of — all. Oh, Rick, never 
dream of doing that maddest, most utterly hopeless 
act of all !” 

Her terror, her earnestness, perhaps some deeper 
thought awakened by her words, silenced him ; he 
urged his request no further, nor did he ever repeat 
it, but Lizzie went home with an added burden 
upon her already heavily-laden heart. There was 
one light amid the gloom : she was learning in 


UNDER SENTENCE. 


93 


those days as never before to cast her burdens upon 
One who could sustain both her and them. 

It was during those dark weeks that Phrony 
first appeared at the Chesters’. Mrs. Halroyd had 
been amused by and interested in the small maid 
of the broom from her husband’s account of her, 
and then her desire to do something to assist and 
comfort the Chesters suggested a plan that might 
be helpful to both. She saw Phrony, explained 
her wish and arranged terms. 

“But I want you to help them all you can with- 
out letting them know that I engaged you for that 
express purpose, if you can manage it,” she said. 

“ Yes’m, I will,” answered Phrony, confidently. 

And she did manage it with considerable deli- 
cacy and skill. She confronted Lizzie the next 
morning with her quick, bobbing curtsey, and said 
briskly, 

“ If you please, ma’am, I’m Phrony. Mrs. Hal- 
royd hires me, but she don’t begin to need me all 
the time, and she said perhaps I could do some- 
thing for her friends here, like a-sittin’ with your 
mother when you wanted to go and see — anybody 
— or a-helpin’ with anything you want done. You 
see, ma’am, I’d like to earn my wages, and Mrs. 
Halroyd’d take any work here just as if ’twas done 
for her, seein’ as she pays me and has so many at 
work at her house that I ain’t needed there.” 

It was a great relief to Lizzie. She accepted 
the offer gratefully, too busy with other thoughts 


94 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


to ask many questions about it, and from that time 
Phrony became a daily visitor, speedily learning 
at what hours she could be of most service, and 
readily adjusting herself to the ways and work of 
the household and contriving to take many of its 
heaviest tasks upon her own strong young shoul- 
ders. But it was a very hard place in which to 
“do the cheerfuls,” she acknowledged to herself 
and at home. 

“It’s just the kind of place for you, Maria,” 
she said to her sister, “ ’cause there’s misfortin’ and 
trouble and ’diction enough there, if there ever was 
anywhere. It’s just around so thick that you 
see it in everything, and you wouldn’t have any 
trouble lookin’ for it, as you do at home. ’T would 
suit you, and save you a good deal of time and 
worry, if ’twas only genteel work. Declare, I get 
mixed up there myself! Miss Lizzie’s so gentle 
and so sad, and her ma so broke down, that ’fore I 
know it I go round a-singin’ ‘ Away with Melan- 
choly ’ with the tears a-drippin’ off the end of my 
nose, and I just have to shake myself and say, 
‘ Be you Phrony, or be you Maria ?’ ” 

“Well, it ain’t as if they hadn’t friends and 
everything ; and I should think we had trouble 
enough of our own, without your cryin’ over other 
folks’s,” replied Maria, characteristically. “ If the 
lady’s so broke down, it’s likely as not she’s got 
a fever or something, and you’ll be catching that 
and bringin’ it home. Then how would we get 


UNDER SENTENCE. 


95 


along, I’d like to know, with you and the boy all 
down ? We ain’t prepared for sickness.” 

“ ’Cause the sickness ain’t prepared for us, I 
s’pose,” answered Phrony, breezily. “ Things do 
mostly sort of fit, Maria.” 

“ Fits ? Yes, that’s another thing,” pursued Ma- 
ria, disconsolately. “ I’ve been a-thinking how, 
with Teddy off to work and Dan and Jimsey at 
school and you a-doin’ round for other folks, what 
if I should have a fit or the house should take fire 
when I’m here all alone some day ?” 

“ Put your fits into the dresses you make and 
a bucket of water onto the fire,” advised Teddy, 
sagely. — “ Girls, I tore the knee of my pants. I 
didn’t go to — ’deed I didn’t — but they just split, 
an’ I believe the stuff was rotten, anyhow.” 

“You always b’lieve that, and you always tear 
your clothes, just as if you had bushels of ’em and 
no end of money. I don’t see how we ever are to 
get along,” sighed Maria. 

“Why, we’re always getting along. Couldn’t 
stand still if we tried,” interposed Phrony ’s crisp 
voice . — “ Good thing there’s a piece like the pants, 
Ted, if you must tear ’em, and that you tore ’em 
at night, too, instead of in the morning, when I 
wouldn’t be here to mend ’em an’ ’twould have 
hindered Maria’s sewin’.” 

Notwithstanding Maria’s peculiar way of view- 
ing everything, she contributed in fair measure to 
the support of the family ; and though she did not 


96 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


regard Phrony’s line of employment with any great 
favor, owing to its lack of what she called “gen- 
teelness,” yet she was very glad of the price it 
brought. Phrony herself was wholly untroubled 
by such objections. She rendered her services for 
compensation because she needed it, but she gave 
also a vast amount of loving thought and generous 
good-will that no money could have purchased, 
never sparing herself trouble or an additional 
walk if so she could be of more benefit. 

“ Old Portmanteau,” lodging on the second floor 
of the same house, seemed at last to notice these 
unusually frequent comings and goings ; and meet- 
ing her in the hall one day, bound on one of her 
hurried trips, he said reflectively, 

“Child, you seem to be going here and there; 
couldn’t you help to scatter good by the way ?” 
and he lifted some of the contents of his portman- 
teau. 

Phrony shook her head decidedly. 

“ It’s needed bad enough some places I go, sir, 
but not where I’m bound for now. They’ve had 
one temperance sermon that’ll do ’em clear through 
to the end of time, and a good ways further. If 
every body ’d had such a one preached all to their- 
selves, why the gin-shops would shut up quicker’n 
a dog’s mouth snappin’ flies, and there’d be no more 
use for tracts and such. That’s what I think !” 
said Phrony, emphatically, a bright drop of sym- 
pathy for Miss Lizzie springing to her keen gray 


UNDER SENTENCE. 


97 


eyes, that so scornfully rejected all tears on their 
own account. 

“ I does my work for Mrs. Halroyd’s money 
she said to herself as she hurried along, “and I 
does it well for honesty, but I does it extry well 
for a-lovin’ and a-pityin’ of my own.” 

Extra well it surely was, and a great assistance 
to Lizzie in those anxious, burdened weeks — a time 
so dark and memorable that never in the long 
after-years could she pass any prison walls with- 
out a shudder. 

Fortunately, the trial, so anxiously expected yet 
dreaded, was not long delayed, and one bright 
spring morning — mockingly bright it seemed — 
the case was called. 

The court-room was crowded with curious or 
interested spectators: a murder-trial was some- 
thing attractive to many. Lizzie, brought there 
with her mother in General Halroyd’s carriage, 
scanned with a swift, wondering glance those 
gathered faces — the judge on the bench, the jury 
sitting there so calmly, but holding such fearful 
power, and the irresponsible crowd beyond. Soon 
a consciousness of the many eyes turned carelessly 
or pityingly upon herself made her own gaze drop. 
The mother leaned back wearily in her chair and 
did not lift her heavy veil. 

Richard looked toward them only once, and then 
sat with averted eyes. He looked white, thin and 
worn as he sat there in the felon’s place. 

7 


98 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“He seems dreadfully cool and indifferent-like 
about it,” was the comment of one critic so near 
Lizzie as to be overheard. But it was only that 
emotion had worn itself out — that there seemed to 
him little left to hope or fear. 

The prosecuting attorney made his opening 
speech, and Lizzie in her ignorance marveled what 
offence her poor Rick could ever have committed 
against this man that had awakened such bitter 
animosity. Surely it must be deep hatred that 
made him so positive in his assertions, so keen in 
his denunciations and so earnest in his efforts to 
convict. The same merciless desire, it appeared to 
her, ran through all his shrewd, pointed question- 
ing of witnesses, drawing from them all they could 
communicate. 

Alas ! those witnesses could tell only too much. 
With each one the weight of proof against the 
prisoner grew stronger and more conclusive. His 
presence with the murdered man that evening, 
their quarrel, Richard’s repeated threats, the inter- 
position of others, the resumption of the affray on 
the sidewalk, Ross’s groan and fall and Richard’s 
standing by him with the stone still in his hand, — 
were all clearly proven. Then followed medical 
testimony by physicians who had examined the 
body of the victim — learned descriptions of the 
structure of the human skull and brain and blood- 
corpuscles, the effect that a sudden and violent 
blow would produce, together with the fact that 


UNDER SENTENCE. 


99 


such effect had been produced on the body of the 
deceased. Medical terms, scientific explanations, 
minute, detailed, tedious descriptions, were given, 
which the tired, harassed thought of the listening 
girl could not follow with anything like clearness, 
but which seemed to mean, when sifted to sim- 
plicity, that a stone could crush a human head, 
and that a stone in Richard Chester’s hand had 
doubtless done so. 

Lizzie herself was placed upon the stand. She 
had little to tell, and that little could not benefit 
her brother; she felt it while the slow, reluctant 
sentences fell from her lips in answer to the ques- 
tioning ; and when she was allowed to retire, she 
turned toward him a glance that seemed to implore 
pardon for her unwilling testimony. But Rick’s 
eyes did not meet hers. 

The witnesses for the defence were few. There 
were those who testified to Richard’s natural gen- 
erosity and amiability of character — his kindness 
to any comrade in trouble; to the fact that he 
had freely loaned this same Ross money but a day 
or two previous to his death. There had been no 
malice, no enmity. Ross himself had provoked 
the sudden attack by taunting, insulting words — 
had followed the prisoner when he would have 
gone away and drawn him back by a rude grasp 
on his shoulder ; that Chester — was that palliation 
or condemnation ? — was not himself when he 
struck the blow, but insane with drink and with- 


100 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


out thought of murderous consequences ; and that 
when he realized what had happened, he seemed 
stunned with surprise and horror as at some fear- 
ful accident. So the testimony dragged its weary 
length through two days. 

General Halroyd’s management of the case was 
admirable — forcible in argument, clear-sighted, 
swift to seize every available point. All that 
learning, skill, tact and eloquence could do was 
done, but the affair was unpromising from the 
first. 

“ No one but Halroyd could have made any 
fight at all of it; he has done marvelously, but it’s 
a foregone conclusion/’ said one appreciative mem- 
ber of the bar to another. “ He’s so thrown his 
whole soul into it, though, that I want to hear his 
closing address to the jury.” 

It was worth hearing. He had indeed thrown 
his soul into it, and his own deep interest, kindling 
his naturally-gifted tongue, made his appeal one 
of rare eloquence and power. Some burning, sca- 
thing words he uttered against the liquor-traffic 
and its fruits which made Mr. George Vance, who 
slipped in to note the progress of the trial when he 
could spare time from his business, writhe uneasily 
in his chair and wonder, with a little secret re- 
sentment, whether he had paid his money for 
such home-thrusts as these. 

Nevertheless, not genius but facts would finally 
influence the jury, and these last, clear, hard, irre- 


UNDER SENTENCE. 


101 


fragable, the State’s attorney summed up in his 
closing speech. With heavy, sickening weight the 
words fell upon the sister’s heart, and for the 
mother’s — who can tell what it suffered that day ? 
Lizzie’s eyes sought General Halroyd’s in trem- 
bling interrogation, and met in return only a grave, 
pitying glance, not a reassuring one, as the jury 
filed away to agree upon their verdict. 

There was a little stir in the court-room, a slight 
turning and rustling, a sort of shaking off of the 
whole matter for the time, and another case was 
called. A new interest crowded out the old with 
all but a few, and the mother and daughter passed 
out into the sunshine of the outer world, where 
groups of laughing school-children were hurrying 
homeward — boys with just such merry, innocent 
faces as Rick’s had been but a few short years 
before. 

Hours of waiting and suspense ensued, and 
then, seated again in that great room that was 
growing so painfully familiar, they were listening 
for the verdict. Heads turned expectantly and all 
eyes were fastened upon the twelve men as they 
entered. One by one the names were called, and a 
breathless silence fell upon the place as every one 
bent to catch the portentous words that were ut- 
tered slowly and distinctly : 

“ Guilty of manslaughter !” 

The grave, dignified old judge looked up through 
his gold-ri mined spectacles : 


102 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“And so say you all, gentlemen of the jury?” 

Every head bowed in assent. All of them ! 

But her poor Rick was not their brother — noth- 
ing to them — was the bitter thought that for a 
moment surged through Lizzie’s heart and then 
died down. Even she, who loved him so, could 
not call the decision unjust. 

Another waiting-time, and then the same scene 
again — the same in background and surroundings, 
but the central point of interest the sentence. The 
mother remained at home, lying motionless upon 
the sofa, while Phrony sat by her, her sympathiz- 
ing heart in her homely face. How Lizzie trem- 
bled and shrank from attendance in the court-room 
that morning she never told. Only the thought that 
Richard must bear it, whatever it was, and the 
possibility that missing all who loved him might 
bring a vague added sense of disconsolateness, 
nerved the tender, loyal soul for the ordeal. She 
heard unheedingly the address to the prisoner on 
the enormity of his crime and the wicked course 
that had led to it. Rick himself scarcely seemed 
to hear it, perhaps because it was at most but a 
faint echo of the stern inner voice that had been 
speaking to him for months. Lizzie had caught a 
pale gleam of hope from the allusion to his youth, 
but all that remained in her memory were the 
decisive words : 

“ At hard labor for the term of ten years.” 

The prisoner had started at the sentence — a 


UNDER SENTENCE . 


103 


slight involuntary motion — and then he leaned 
back with a sigh, whether of disappointment or 
of relief it were hard to tell. 

u It would have been a longer term but for Gen- 
eral Halroyd’s influence — you may depend on 
that,” commented one voice among the groups 
passing out. 

And a woman’s voice observed, 

“ Dreadful, isn’t it? but a pretty short sentence, 
considering. Why, I shouldn’t have been surprised 
if it had been for life.” 

But these knew him only as a criminal, not as a 
son and brother. For those to whom he stood in 
such relation it was hard to find words of comfort. 

Mr. Vance found it so. Going home with Lizzie 
because he could not leave her alone, and facing 
the pale mother, than whom he would rather have 
met “ a strong man armed,” he tried his utmost to 
discover the “ bright side,” but acknowledged to 
himself that it must be the outside and not the 
inside of prison walls. 

“ But we have done our best — our very best — 
spared nothing ; we have that to reflect upon. 
Besides, there are pardons sometimes, and such 
things, and — In fact, ‘while there’s life there’s 
hope,’ ” he said, rubbing his hands together. 

Hope of what he did not state: he did not 
know. His remark did not seem very consoling 
even to himself, but it was all that he could think 
of except what he could not say — that Rick might 


104 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


be less grief to them in the penitentiary than out, 
and that as a dead trouble is said to be less than a 
living one, so an imprisoned trouble might prove 
more bearable than one roaming at large. He 
thought all that, though he sincerely pitied them, 
and Rick likewise. He could think of no more 
cheerful view that he might have advanced when 
he recounted the interview to his wife that evening, 
and again rubbed his hands nervously until she 
noticed the motion. 

“What do you keep doing that for, George? 
Such an awkward movement, exactly as if you 
were washing your hands !” she said, annoyed. 

Why was it that suddenly there flashed across 
his memory an old half-forgotten story of one who 
“washed his hands before the multitude”? This 
matter was no fault of his, that he should be seek- 
ing to rid his hands of it, and yet — Such scenes 
would wear upon the strongest nerves, and he felt 
strangely moody and depressed, he said. 

Phrony offered truer comfort : 

“ I don’t know as I’d ought to say a word, Miss 
Lizzie, seein’ it’s you and seein’ it’s me, and folks 
as ain’t tried don’t know ; and I don’t know much, 
any ways. But I do b’lieve I’d sort of look at it 
this way — that God is Judge above all the judges 
and settles things above all juries, and so, whatever’s 
done, he’s in it ; and if he’s in it, there must be good 
in it somehow, ’cause I’m pretty sure there’s a verse 
about his will bein’ ‘ good-will to men.’ I don’t 


UNDER SENTENCE. 


105 


s’pose any ten years here will seem so awful much 
up yonder if it brings things out right, you know .” 

Even so. His kingdom did rule over all, and 
no bolts and bars shutting out other friends could 
shut out Him who “came to call not the righteous 
but sinners,” to save those that are lost. And the 
faith that upholds through all things brought its 
solace here. 

In a few days the prisoners were taken away. 
Mrs. Chester and Lizzie were allowed a brief part- 
ing interview with Hick. He would have avoided 
it if he could have done so, and he said apart to 
Lizzie — he could not pierce his mother’s heart with 
the words — 

“ Why did you come ? Why don’t you give me 
up and let me drop ?” 

“ Oh, Hick ! You know we never can do that.” 

“ What have I ever been to you but a curse, a 
steady heartache? and I have disgraced you all,” 
he said, gloomily. “ If I could only forget that 
I had dragged you down and ruined your lives, the 
rest would be more endurable. Think of your 
being pointed at as my mother and sister! If you 
really want to make my punishment a little lighter, 
forget me. Try to make a brighter lot for your- 
selves where I’m not known, and leave me out of 
all your thoughts and plans; for you will never 
see me again. I shall save you that, if you will 
not save yourselves. You need not fear or hope 
that you will ever hear of me. I will go afterward 


106 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


— if I live through — far enough away from this 
country.” 

“ Rick, you will not — you must not !” she cried 
through her tears. “ We can never let you go out 
of our lives or our hearts. Nothing that any one 
can do — even yourself — can ever make you any less 
our own. We shall think of you, love you, pray 
for you, always. You are my dear, my only, 
brother, through everything.” 

The tears gathered in his eyes, the first that had 
moistened them for weeks, and he kissed her with 
the sudden tenderness of the old days. 

“ My faithful Lizzie !” he said ; but in an instant 
he added, “ You had better do as I have said. I 
deserve nothing else — wish nothing else. My poor 
mother ! her heart is broken !” 

“You are our own — we love you,” Lizzie re- 
iterated ; and emboldened by the near parting, she 
added earnestly, “And oh, Rick, remember, if 
human love so holds you, the divine love is in- 
finitely greater still. You cannot go away from 
that.” 

A movement of the guards, a quick glance at 
the watch, a hurried embrace of his mother, and 
he was gone. 

“ Rather a short term. Halroyd did well,” again 
commented some who saw him borne away. 

But the mother moaned, 

“He has known but twenty years of life, and 
now this ! Oh, my boy !” 


CHAPTER VII. 

FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 

HE trial over, General Halroyd went home 
exhausted. His strength had slowly failed 
in those weeks — sapped, indeed, by that 
very excitement and interest in the case 
that had borne him forward so unflaggingly. 
Constant thought and effort had taxed his declin- 
ing health to the utmost, but it had also furnish- 
ed a brief feverish vigor that had upheld him ; 
and now that it was ended the reaction came. Once 
after his visit to the physician that medical gentle- 
man had met him in the street, and, struck by his 
altered appearance, inquired whether he had follow- 
ed his advice. 

The general shook his head : 

“ I have pledged myself to abstain from every- 
thing of the kind ; I think I told you.” 

“ Pledged yourself to your own destruction,” re- 
torted the doctor, rather impatiently. “ A man like 
you to get such a crotchet in his head !” 

u My head was more crotchety when your pro- 
posed remedy was in it,” laughed the general. 

107 



108 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“No, no, doctor ; I shall ‘ fight it out on this line/ 
and shall be all right presently. I’m not gaining 
very fast now because I am so busy, but I can rest 
and recuperate by and by.” 

The doctor smiled, but shook his head doubt- 
fully as they parted. 

Ariel had been watchful and troubled, but she 
also had been partly deceived by the evanescent 
power that excitement had imparted and soothed 
by the hope that rest would bring restoration. But 
when the tension was removed, utter prostration 
followed. The general wearily sought his office, 
but was unable to remain there ; then he tried en- 
tire quiet at home for a day or two, but it brought 
no improvement; and finally the physician was 
summoned. 

He was undisguisedly shocked at the condition 
in which he found his patient : 

“ It is just as I told you. You must take the 
advice I gave you before ; it is the only chance for 
you.” 

“ There is no such chance ; you need not take 
that into consideration,” the general answered, 
calmly. 

“ General Halroyd, this is madness — utter mad- 
ness!” the doctor said, vehemently. “Apart from 
all question of the right or wrong of using intoxi- 
cating liquor as a beverage, the fact is simply this: 
you have been accustomed to such use from your 
boyhood, it has become a second nature to you, and 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH 


109 


you can no more do entirely without it now than 
your stomach can do without food or your lungs 
without air. It is no longer a matter of choice.” 

“ No, but of principle.” 

Again the doctor’s impatience flamed forth : 

“Your pledge, you mean, which you took with- 
out due deliberation — without knowledge or thought 
of the consequences it would entail.” 

“ Which I took solemnly and deliberately, and 
with deeper thought of some consequences involved 
than I ever had before in my life,” corrected the 
general. 

“Well, in most cases it would have been the 
best possible step to take,” admitted the doctor, 
impressed by his earnestness. “You are rather 
peculiarly constituted and circumstanced, but even 
in your case Ido not ask you to break your pledge. 
You certainly meant by it to make of yourself a 
temperate man, not a dead man. Keep the spirit 
of it instead of pressing the letter. Begin the use 
of some alcoholic stimulant — whatever you prefer 
— but lessen the quantity gradually as you can ac- 
custom yourself to doing without it until you can 
safely give it up altogether.” 

A slight, peculiar smile flitted over the general’s 
lips. 

“ How long a time do you suppose that would 
require, doctor?” he asked. 

“ I cannot say exactly ; hard to tell,” the doctor 
replied, evasively. 


110 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“Do you believe, constituted as I am, that I 
should ever abandon the use of liquor in that 
way?” Then, as the doctor was silent, he added, 
“I know that I never should — that I never could. 
You will deem that a confession of weakness ; and 
it is one. It was because I was suddenly awakened 
to the fearful power of this habit over me — to the 
ruin it was working to soul and body — that I re- 
solved to put it down for ever. It was no light or 
uncalled-for vow that I took, and it must stand.” 

“Understand me, General Halroyd,” said the 
doctor, earnestly : “I am no advocate of intemper- 
ance, nor do I make any practice of prescribing 
alcoholic liquor for my patients ; neither, as a man 
of honor, would I hold a pledge lightly ; but I 
know of nothing I can do for you that will be of 
any real benefit except what I have advised. You 
call it a poison. Granted ; but your system de- 
mands it. You say that you cannot abandon its 
use gradually. I do not know that you can, but 
by stopping it so suddenly you will die.” 

“ I will run that risk sooner than the other.” 

“ It is not risk, it is certainty,” the doctor re- 
plied. “If you persist in your present course, no 
mortal power can save you.” 

The general’s eyes turned to the window and 
away to the glowing sunset sky for a moment; but 
when he looked back, he answered quietly and un- 
falteringly : 

“ Then, by the aid of that Power which is above 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 


Ill 


mortal, I will die unperjured and — sober.” Then 
his eyes sought his wife question ingly : “ Ariel ?” 

She looked at him, but did not speak. 

“You, knowing all, would not ask me to do 
this?” 

Her face was paler than his — white as the mar- 
ble mantel against which she leaned — but she an- 
swered slowly : 

“No, Max, not to sin. Not for my sake, nor 
for life’s sake.” 

There was nothing more to be said. 

Ariel, when hope wholly died, as it was slow to 
do, could not alter what she had said. Even this 
dear life might not be bought at such price — there 
were some things more precious still ; but she 
looked back wonderingly at the words she had 
once spoken, never dreaming what their meaning 
might be : “I would give anything — anything ! — 
to free him from this chain.” 

“You know what One said of a saving of life 
that loses it, and a losing that saves it, Ariel ? I 
think it is choice between those two that we are 
making now,” the general said. 

He went to his office occasionally when he could 
do so, arranging all business-matters there, but 
gradually these visits had to be abandoned, and 
during the bright summer days he lay upon the 
sofa for hours, Bible in hand, “ studying the law of 
the higher land,” he said with a smile. There 
were long talks, too, of that “better country” 


112 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


where the lives parted here should reunite, coun- 
sel taken for little Harry’s future, and sacred, ten- 
der interchanges of thought and care and heavenly 
hope that no pen can transcribe. Ariel was still- 
ing her heart in those days with all the self-control 
of her mighty love, resolved that the weight of her 
grief should not shadow these closing hours for 
him or wrest from her their sad, exquisite sweet- 
ness. There would be time enough for loneliness 
and tears afterward — she must not think of that 
now ; and she sat by him day by day, meeting his 
tender, watchful eyes, ready to talk or read or sing, 
as he wished. 

The learned, gifted lawyer seemed as simple in 
his faith as a child, and looked forward with quiet, 
unquestioning confidence to the world beyond. 

“ Darling, you are so sure,” Ariel said, wistfully, 
one day. 

“ Why not?” he asked with a smile. “‘He 
that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.’ I 
do believe, and the life is mine. It is His own 
word. Should I doubt the ‘ faithful and true wit- 
ness ’ ?” 

“ But, Max, our faith is such an imperfect thing.” 

“ True, but its object is perfect — One ‘able to 
save to the uttermost.’” 

“Yes, and willing — if we believe aright” she 
answered, still hesitatingly. 

“ Did you ever study that type our Lord himself 
has given, Ariel ?” he asked — “ the brazen serpent 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 


113 


uplifted in the wilderness? It says nothing of the 
color of the eyes to be turned to it, or of their being 
perfect or imperfect, weak or strong; if only they 
looked, it was life. We are not required to be sat- 
isfied with our own faith, which is indeed a faulty 
thing, but with the Lord himself, in whom we 
stand — who atones for our guilt with his own blood 
and makes us worthy with his own righteousness. 
I think we perplex ourselves too much, dear, about 
this matter of faith, as if it were something myste- 
rious, when it is but a hand outstretched to receive 
the gift. I cannot fathom the love that gave, but 
I can, and do, accept the gift.” 

“ It seems so sweet, looking at it in that way,” 
she said — “so plain and clear.” 

“ Drop that little word ‘ seems/ Ariel ; it is plain 
and clear. I have never found clearer testimony 
or surer title : ‘ whosoever believeth/ ‘ whosoever 
cometh/ ‘ whosoever will/ Shall we not take Him 
at his word ? Because he lives we shall live also.” 

“ Max, I used so to pray that you might care 
more for these things,” she said with trembling lip, 
“ and now you are so far beyond me.” 

“ A little nearer to the door of that world from 
whence the light comes — that is all, dear,” he an- 
swered. 

For a moment her heroism failed : 

“ Oh, my own, if this need not be ! It is too 
hard to part now, when we could be so happy 
together.” 

8 


114 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“ We are happy,” he replied, caressing the bowed 
head, “ knowing more happiness in these few weeks 
than comes to most long lifetimes, I think. God’s 
compensations are rich and sweet; and, after all, 
this is but the shorter, lower life, darling.” 

“ True, but it is dear and familiar, and of that 
other land we know so little,” she said, sadly. 

“ Ariel,” he questioned, thoughtfully, “ if I were 
gone away to England or Italy, and wrote you that 
I had prepared a beautiful home for you there, 
would you know at all what it was like?” 

“Yes,” she answered, slowly ; “you would not 
call any place a beautiful home for me unless you 
knew I would think it beautiful. And you know 
all my tastes and wishes so well, and always re- 
member my fancies. Oh yes !” smiling into his 
eyes through her tears ; “ I can almost picture that 
home, Max : there would be all my favorite pic- 
tures and statues, the tints I admire in hangings and 
carpets, and the sunny windows and cozy corners 
that 1 delight in. Your love would make no mis- 
takes, and I should be sure of being satisfied.” 

“And cannot you so trust the love that is 
greater than mine- — the knowledge that understands 
you perfectly? The One who created us with all 
our tastes and sensibilities, and has provided such 
means for their gratification here, will he make his 
own heaven poorer? When our Lord tells us that 
he has gone to prepare a place for us, can we not 
trust him to suit it to the souls he has created, re- 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 


115 


deemed and knows so infinitely well ? Doubtless 
we shall be satisfied when we awake in his like- 
ness.’’ 

She was silent for a moment, her hand clasped 
in his, until he repeated : 

“ ‘ 1 long to see Jerusalem, 

The comfort of us all, 

For thou art fair and beautiful : 

None ill can thee befall.’ 

Read the dear old hymn once more, Ariel.” 

Then she was ready with clear, firm voice to read 
the sweet, quaint words : 

“ ‘ 0 mother dear, Jerusalem ! 

When shall I come to thee ? 

W T hen shall my sorrows have an end, 

Thy joys when shall I see ? 

Oh, happy harbor of God’s saints ! 

Oh, sweet and pleasant soil ! 

In thee no sorrow can be found, 

No grief, no care, no toil. 

‘ In thee no sickness is at all, 

Nor hurt nor any sore ; 

There is no death nor ugly sight, 

But life for evermore. 

Thy turrets and thy pinnacles 
With carbuncles do shine, 

With jasper, pearl and chrysolite, 

Surpassing pure and fine. 

‘Thy houses are of ivory, 

Thy windows crystal clear ; 

Thy streets are laid with beaten gold : 

There angels do appear. 


116 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


Thy walls are made of precious stones, 

Thy bulwarks diamond-square ; 

Thy gates are made of Orient pearl : 

O God ! if I were there ! 

* Quite through the streets, with pleasant sound, 

The flood of life doth flow ; 

Upon the banks, on every side, 

The trees of life do grow. 

No candle needs, no moon to shine, 

No glittering stars to light; 

For Christ, the King of righteousness, 

There ever shineth bright.’ ” 

Those were wonderful days to Ariel. It was a 
tarrying in the very border-land, and the light and 
peace lingered with her long afterward. The inva- 
lid’s strength ebbed slowly yet surely, but the firm, 
strong spirit never wavered. Only his wife’s pal- 
ing cheek troubled him. 

“ Ah, my darling ! you were right when you 
said that the vice of intemperance brought always 
sorrow sooner or later,” he said one day. “ It has 
come home now.” 

“Not in that way,” she interposed, eagerly. 
“ Oh, Max, this is not the sin, but the resisting of 
it unto death.” 

“But it is the penalty of sin, none the less; we 
must not blind our eyes to that. An evil habit so 
long indulged that it has utterly enfeebled and 
poisoned a once strong constitution, and now the 
effort to free the soul from its grasp destroys the 
body. Young Chester is not more surely in his 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH 


117 


prison-cell because of intemperance than I shall be 
in — ” He paused ; he could not speak the words 
that would fall so drearily on that loving heart, but 
added, “ My wife, in the years that are coming do 
all that you can to save others from this wrong and 
the sorrow that follows it.” 

“Yes,” she promised, earnestly, yet wondering 
if indeed there could be years for her after this. 

“And, Ariel,” with a steadfast look into her eyes, 
“you do not regret this that we have done? You 
will let no after-pain or loneliness make it seem to 
you a needless self-sacrifice? Tell me again, my 
darling.” 

“ No ; it never can,” she sobbed. “ Oh, Max, if 
it had been anything but that old question, ‘ What 
shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole 
world and lose’ — himself? Cost what it may, we 
could give but the one answer. I dare not, I do 
not, recall it.” 

His face brightened again, and he folded his 
arms around her with a whispered benediction 
whose memory comforted her in many a lonely 
after-hour : 

“My brave, true-hearted wife, who has been 
faithful unto death and helped me to count the life 
that now is as nothing to that which is to come, and 
has endured in all these weary weeks ‘as seeing 
Him who is invisible’! God bless her for ever 
and for ever !” 

So the summer days came and went. The roses 


118 


OLD PORTMANTEA U. 


bloomed and faded and the grapes began to grow 
purple on sunny southern walls. Then, one peace- 
ful evening, as the sun went down amid clouds 
of crimson, purple and gold, the serene eyes that 
had been watching it closed, and the general “ fell 
asleep.” 

The doctor heard these last tidings of his patient 
with a shake of the head, and muttered, 

“I knew it! Obstinate! Drank excessively 
and then abstained as excessively — a perfect mon- 
omaniac !” 

But for Ariel, widowed and with the new strange 
sense of bereavement and loss pressing upon her, 
though but dimly realized as yet, her first prayer 
beside her dead was one of thanksgiving: 

a ^ Thanks be to God, which giveth us the vic- 
tory through our Lord Jesus Christ/” 

While the rooms w r ere darkened, and whispered 
consultations were held, and softened footfalls came 
and went, “ Old Portmanteau ” came again to the 
house. The surprised servant would have sent 
him away but that her mistress, passing up the 
stairs, heard and recognized the voice and sum- 
moned the girl. 

a Give him this,” she said, placing money in her 
hand — “ it will pay for two of his books ; and ask 
him to give them to some one where he thinks they 
may do good.” 

But the old man in his brief waiting had 
aroused a little from his usual air of reverie and 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 


119 


noted the signs of mourning around him. He ac- 
cepted the money with only a bow of acquiescence; 
but receiving such a message at such a time, he 
dimly surmised something that lay beneath it, and 
with a sigh for the gentle lady he looked back at 
the closed windows as he turned away, and mur- 
mured, 

“‘Now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest; 
it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled/ ” 

Flowers lay thickly upon the coffin — blossoms 
rare and beautiful in bouquet and garland and 
cross ; but some loving, thoughtful hand placed 
near the head one perfect passion-flower amid 
shining laurel-leaves, a story of suffering and 
triumph. Ariel's eyes lighted through their heavy 
mist of tears as they fell upon it, reading in the 
token both the comfort of human appreciation 
and the strength of the divine promise, 

“He that overcometh shall inherit all things.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


JOE’S CROSS-ROADS . 

HE tidings of Rick’s sentence brought Mrs. 
Vance from the country to her sister’s 
house. Kind-hearted and longing to com- 
fort she certainly was, even though her ex- 
pressions of sympathy were not always those 
best adapted to sore hearts. One thing she was 
fully determined upon : they must all go home 
with her. Emily was ill — completely broken down 
in body and spirit; Lizzie was pale and worn ; and 
even Mabel’s childish face bore traces of those sor- 
rowful weeks. Entire change and the quiet and 
rest of the country would be good for them all, 
Mrs. Vance insisted, going about the packing at 
once. 

It was a comfort to have her so decide for 
them and take the matter wholly out of their 
hands. Lizzie had given little thought in those 
trying days to what would come afterward, but 
she realized now how impossible it would be to re- 
turn at once to the old life and work, how unfit for 
it were both her mother and herself. She did not 
care for the promised change of scene and sur- 
120 ^ 



JOE'S CROSS-ROADS. 


121 


roundings ; it did not seem to her that any such 
thing could ever interest her again ; but her aunt’s 
proposition was a relief in that it opened in her 
hedged-up path another step to take, and placed 
definitely before her one more thing which was right 
and needful to be done. So she moved about 
wearily, making the necessary arrangements, ac- 
quiescing passively in her aunt’s plans, and only 
arousing to active thought where her mother’s 
comfort was concerned. 

Joe met them at the station, when their short 
journey by rail was accomplished, with a light 
wagon and sedate old horses, and drove slowly to 
the farm along a quiet, pleasant country road. 
Mrs. Vance greeted her own peaceful home with a 
sigh of relief and thankfulness. She had some- 
times wished for city life as affording a better 
chance for her boys when they should grow older, 
but as the two little urchins ran out to meet her 
that night she realized more fully than ever before 
some possible perils that might lie before them. 
Putting aside some old ambitious dreams, she said 
resolutely to herself, 

“ Money is a good thing and son George has 
made a good deal of it, but I’ll never trust Ted or 
Kip to that business, whatever the prospects may 
b e — never ! I have seen too much of the danger 
and sorrow that it brings.” 

Joe, watching her face in that homeward ride 
and the look she bent upon her boys, shrewdly 


122 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


surmised her thought, and commented upon it to 
himself as he put away the horses : 

“ That portmanteau-man said’ he was sowing 
seed wherever he went. If he should come along 
this way again, I guess he’d find some of it here- 
abouts had begun to sprout. Thought he was talk- 
ing sense all the time, and that it would seem of 
more account some time than it did then.” 

Lizzie had not realized the tension upon her 
nerves and brain or known how utterly weary she 
was until she learned it in this time of rest — rest 
to body, and gradually to mind also. She had 
thought she could never know pleasure again, that 
all her life thenceforth must be but the enduring of 
her great sorrow. But now that the long suspense 
was over and she leaned more entirely on the one 
thought of strength and peace — that Rick was still 
in the Father’s loving care, still guarded by his 
watchful eye — life pressed upon her with its count- 
less interests once more, and slowly she began to 
take them up. 

At first it was only to please others. She was 
grateful for the thoughtful care bestowed upon her 
mother and relieved by sharing the responsibility 
of ministering to her with others tender and more 
experienced than herself; and so, when her aunt 
sought counsel from her taste in laying out a flow- 
er-plat in the garden or trimming a dress for little 
Sis, she forced herself into an interested considera- 
tion of the matter as the least return she could 


JOE’S CROSS-ROADS. 


123 


make for kindness bestowed. The children, too, 
were constantly appealing to her and drawing her 
away from herself and her grief, which they did 
not understand and for which they made no allow- 
ance. It seemed hard sometimes, but it was health- 
ful, nevertheless. The eager faces and teasing 
voices pressed around her and drew her here and 
there as the days went by, now to look at some 
wonderful chickens in the yard and now for an 
evening walk in the fields, until she found, with a 
sort of surprise at herself, her hands full of mosses 
and wild flowers that she had gathered and a faint 
responsive thrill coming to her heart at the sound 
of a bird-song. 

To Mabel the change this visit brought was un- 
mistakably beneficial. She was older than the 
children at the farm, but their society was good 
for her, while Joe, whose pity had gone out toward 
the saddened little face that looked up at him the 
first evening of their arrival, made her his especial 
pet. He introduced her to so many new pleasures 
that her cheeks soon grew rosy and her voice merry, 
and she declared enthusiastically that she should 
like to stay there always. 

" If only mamma could get well again, or rest- 
ed !” she said. 

It was only weariness of which Mrs. Chester 
complained, reclining quietly on lounge or in easy- 
chair, and silent nearly always. When Lizzie bent 
tenderly over her or Mabel sought to enlist her in 


124 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


some new enjoyment, she answered their solicitude 
with the assurance, 

“ I am not suffering; I am only tired. Perhaps 
I shall be stronger by and by.” 

The days as they passed seemed to bring little 
change to her ; but when Lizzie spoke of it to her 
aunt, she answered reassuringly : 

“ I don’t think it is strange, child. Your mo- 
ther never was very strong, and she’s clear tired 
out now, as she says, soul and body, with all she’s 
been through. It’ll take a good while to make 
her feel like herself again, and I wouldn’t try to 
hurry her. I know it is a rest to her to feel that 
you’re all here, with somebody to look after things 
besides just you, now that she’s so miserable. 
Don’t worry, but just settle down for a long 
visit; it’s the best for her and all of you.” 

There came in a few weeks word from Pick — a 
letter not written by himself, but by the prison- 
chaplain, who, interested by his despairing face 
and by what he had learned of his past life, had 
obtained some knowledge of his family. Rightly 
judging of the anxious hearts that were bound to 
the prisoner, he sent tidings of his safe arrival 
and his bodily welfare, with the assurance that he 
would do for him all that was in his power. The 
chaplain could not write very comfortinglv, yet 
they were glad to receive his letter, the first bear- 
ing that postmark — a name that must mean so 
much for them for ten long years. 


JOE’S CROSS-ROADS. 


125 


Lizzie and the mother read the letter again and 
again. Mrs. Vance only asked briefly if Rick 
were well. She pitied him far less than she blamed 
him, and her bitterness increased whenever she 
looked in his mother’s face. She compelled her- 
self to make the inquiry only for the mother’s 
sake. Secretly she cherished the opinion Rick had 
expressed — that as he had brought to them only 
pain, sorrow and disgrace, it would be better for 
them if they should never see or hear from him 
again ; far better if they could only forget him. 
She was a mother, and she knew that last could 
not be, but in proportion to the remedilessness of 
the wrong her indignant resentment toward the 
perpetrator deepened. She belonged to a class, in 
which are many good people, who, their quiet lives 
having shut them away from temptation, ascribe 
their respectable standing to their own heroic vir- 
tues instead of to a sheltering Providence, and 
sternly condemn those who fall, quite forgetting 
that He to whom alone is committed all judgment 
was first “ tempted in all points like as we are, yet 
without sin.” 

Mr. Vance shared his wife’s feeling, and Mrs. 
Chester readily divined it. She could not speak 
of her boy to them, and she could talk of little 
else; so the habit of silence grew upon her, and a 
far-away, waiting look came more and more into 
her eyes. 

“.As if she saw something miles and miles away, 


126 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


over the river and mountains, plainer than any- 
thing that’s here,” thought Joe, studying her face 
as he had a fashion of studying everything that 
came within the range of his keen eyes. 

These new inmates of the farmhouse were en- 
larging Joe’s world and bringing to him many new 
thoughts and experiences. His eager, active mind 
was constantly reaching after fresh knowledge. 
Not that he was himself really conscious of the 
hunger; he "only liked to know about things and 
fit them together,” he said. Even Mabel, fresh 
from her school-life, could open some new doors 
for him, and he dropped into a way as the weeks 
passed of telling her some of the strange wonder- 
ings and conjectures that he had always before 
kept locked in his own brain. He did it only for 
Mabel’s own sake at first, to try by any means to 
interest the little stranger; but as he found that 
she never laughed or misunderstood, but pondered 
the subjects in earnest, childish fashion, with some- 
times a quaint suggestion that was not valueless, 
he began to enjoy such conversations. 

"What are you looking at, Joe?” she asked, 
coming to him one night as he sat on the low steps 
of the porch. 

“ Them,” answered Joe, pointing up at the glit- 
tering stars. 

* Yes, I know ; but I mean, what are you think- 
ing about?” 

“ Them,” replied Joe again with the same gesture. 


JOE’S CROSS-ROADS. 


127 


“ Wondering what they are, and all about it. You 
see, they keep twinkling at a fellow so every night, 
as if they were just winking and saying, ‘ Don’t 
you wish you knew about us? Don’t you wish 
you knew?’ It always sets me to thinking.” 

“ Why, they’re worlds ; Lizzie knows about it. 
— Ain’t they, Lizzie?” said Mabel, eagerly, as her 
sister came to the open door. 

“ Yes, other worlds,” Lizzie answered, rather 
sadly, with a dreamy upward glance. She was 
wandering if sin and sorrow had ever visited them. 

“ Oh, I know that — or I mean I’ve heard it, 
’cause I don’t know anything about it for sure,” 
said Joe. “ But I wonder w r hat makes them so 
bright and some of them always in one place, while 
the others move about? I s’pose they are worlds, 
but they don’t look like it.” 

“ Because they are so far off,” Lizzie answered — 
“so far away, some of them, that they must have 
been shining thousands of years before their light 
could reach our earth.” 

“ It would take thousands of years to get to them, 
then, if we could travel as fast as light. It makes 
one dizzy just to think of it. And then the others 
’way beyond them again — the little shiners that we 
can scarcely see ; how far away they must be ! 
Makes it seem as if eternity wouldn’t be a bit too 
long to find out about things in, don’t it, Miss 
Lizzie?” said Joe, reflectively. 

Then followed a host of questions as to how fast 


128 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


light traveled, the names of the different constella- 
tions and how far they were from the earth. Liz- 
zie’s meagre knowledge of the subject was soon 
exhausted : 

“ I can’t tell you much about it, Joe ; I don’t 
know, and I have forgotten some of the things 
I used to study. We could learn more about 
it if I had my Astronomy here.” 

“ A book that tells about the stars ? Oh, I wish 
you had !” said Joe, eagerly. 

“It is here, packed away among some of the 
things up stairs. I’ll find it to-morrow,” she said. 

The words were scarcely spoken before she half 
regretted them. She did not want to take up the 
study again — she could feel no interest in it now, she 
thought; yet Joe would want what help she could 
give. She had promised, however, and the promise 
must be kept ; so the book was found, and the ef- 
fort to please and benefit Joe served still more to 
arouse her from her brooding and force upon her 
notice life’s healthful duties. In this battle of life, 
as in other battles, whoever faints or falls, the order 
is still “ Close up the ranks !” However our hearts 
may ache, we must still draw nearer to those who 
remain, and shoulder to shoulder with them press 
forward to the work and duty before us. So, be- 
cause it is right and best, the calls of those who 
need us — God’s calls — still come to us from every 
side, even in the midst of our sorest griefs. 

To Joe, Lizzie’s presence at the farm was both 


JOE’S CROSS-ROADS. 


129 


pleasure and profit. Older than himself and with 
better opportunities than he had enjoyed, she was 
to him a rare embodiment of learning. She cared 
more for books than any one whom Joe had ever 
known, and he liked to listen when the children’s 
talk drew her into explanation or story. 

One warm, still Sabbath afternoon the children 
gathered around her under a widespreading apple 
tree not far from the house and clamored for a 
story. 

“ ’Cause, you see, we oughtn’t to play and every- 
thing, and we must do something, only there isn’t 
anything to do. And if I was a big cousin and 
you was my little cousin, I’d tell you every story I 
could think of, I would,” said Sis, impressively. 

Lizzie threw her shawl upon the grass, and seat- 
ing herself upon it leaned back against the trunk 
of the tree, and after a moment’s thought began to 
tell them of the prophet Elisha, whom the king of 
Syria tried to capture. She told how the armed 
bands went from one city to another until they 
found where he was stopping, and surrounded the 
place ; of the prophet’s fearless faith and how he 
calmed his servant’s dismay with the quiet assu- 
rance, “ They that be with us are more than they 
that be with them then of that wonderful open- 
ing of the servant’s eyes to behold the mountain 
full of horses and chariots of fire guarding the 
man of God. 

Teddy stared, round eyed, at a far-away white 
9 


130 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


cloud, as if expecting some heavenly horsemen to 
appear there, while Lizzie completed the account 
of the prophet’s deliverance. 

“ Wonder if the soldiers saw them? Wouldn’t 
they have been scared !” exclaimed Kip. 

“ They must have felt afraid when they couldn’t 
see,” said Sis, putting her hands over her own eyes 
to try the effect. “ I don’t believe they’d ever try 
to take him again.” 

Joe, lying on the grass, a little outside of the 
circle, waited until the children’s comments had 
ended, and then he said slowly, 

“Miss Lizzie, do you think God cares just as 
much for folks — his people — now as he used to in 
old times?” 

“ Why, Joe ! Surely he does.” 

“But he don’t seem to take care of ’em so — in 
the same way, anyhow,” persisted the boy. 

“ Not in the same way, perhaps ; I’m not sure. 
Our eyes haven’t been opened, you know ; perhaps, 
if they had, we should sometimes see the horses 
and chariots of fire around us too. But in some 
way — the best way — he does take care of us, I 
know,” Lizzie answered, earnestly. “ He is the 
same yesterday, to-day and for ever.” 

“ But it don’t seem as if the best folks had the 
best times ; they have lots of trouble.” 

“ Yes, I know.” Lizzie’s eyes filled with tears. 
“ But then they have his comforting and love 
through it all, and they are sure— or they ought to 


JOE’S CROSS-ROADS. 


131 


be — that he will bring good out of it at last. And 
then this life isn’t the only one, Joe.” 

“No,” Joe answered, seriously. “And it would 
seem good to think that somebody cared all the 
time whether you went right or wrong, and that 
when good things came they didn’t just happen, 
but were sent because some one cared for you. 
But then, you see, the old prophets knew they 
belonged to him ; they’d heard him speak. It 
isn’t the same with folks now.” 

“ He speaks through his word to us all now. 
Would the Lord have come to our world and 
given his life for us, Joe, if he had not loved us 
and wanted us for his own ? It is just for us 
to choose that we will be his people, and we are 
sure of his care and love in this world and beyond 
it. He has given us all the promises and every- 
thing that we need; it is just to take hold of his 
covenant.” 

Joe made no reply ; he began to weave long 
blades of grass together, and seemed intently en- 
gaged in that occupation. The children were 
presently attracted by his work and crowded around 
him to watch it, and the story seemed entirely for- 
gotten. But Joe w T as thinking, nevertheless. He 
scarcely knew when he first began to consider this 
subject as anything that concerned himself — that 
stormy night, perhaps, when the old portmanteau- 
man had spoken with such strange earnestness. 
Then there had been an occasional sermon to which 


132 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


lie had listened since — not many, for there were 
always plenty of odds and ends about the farm 
that demanded his attention on Sunday mornings; 
there was no one to urge his going to the village 
church when indifference prompted him to remain 
away, and usually, on pleasant days, Joe thought a 
ramble in the woods preferable to the service. 
Since the Chesters came, however, there had been 
many things to turn his thoughts in this new 
direction. 

By and by, as the sun dropped lower in the west, 
Joe suddenly threw down his bit of grass- weaving 
and arose from the little group. 

“ Guess it’s about time to go for the cows,” he 
observed, and then hurried away. Out through the 
gate he passed and down the long lane, his speed 
gradually slackening as he found himself alone. 
It was very peaceful and still in the smooth green 
meadow ; no one was in sight, and no sound came 
there but the low murmur of the brook and the 
faint tinkle of bells that told where the cows were 
grazing. Joe made his way down to the side of 
the stream and sauntered slowly along it, absently 
whipping the tops of the bushes with the stick he 
carried. Presently coming to a great mossy stone 
that was often his resting-place, he threw himself 
down upon it. 

“ It’s no use talking nor dodging. Pve come to 
cross-roads, sure, and Pve got to take one way or 
the other,” he muttered. “ Might as well make 


JOE’S CROSS-ROADS. 


133 


up my mind now as at any time and with his 
elbows resting on his knees and his chin between 
his palms, he fixed his gaze upon the brook as if 
some counsel lay in its depths. “ It’s cross-roads, 
and I’ve got to take one way or the other, ” he re- 
peated. “ It can’t be no zigzag, trying to travel 
on both at once. I’ve seen folks that tried that, 
but nobody ever did it yet. Will I be one of His 
folks? or will I just push ahead for Joe Kenyon, 
first and last, do my own way and have what I can 
get ? Sort of mean question, that is, too, come to 
think of it, seeing I can’t have anything but what 
he gives me.” 

Joe was silent again, thinking long, long thoughts. 
The voice that hundreds of years before had called 
to the fishermen by the sea was summoning the 
boy at the lonely brook in the self-same words: 
“ Follow me.” Slowly the graciousness and sweet- 
ness of the call filled his soul. He began dimly 
to comprehend the blessedness of having the love, 
the strength and the righteousness of the Lord for 
his inheritance even in this life, and then, stretch- 
ing away beyond this, was that other life of which 
Lizzie had spoken. The question of which road 
he should choose faded from his mind, and instead 
he said wistfully, 

“ I wonder if He will really take me — Joe Ken- 
yon — for one of his folks?” 

Then Lizzie’s question flashed into his mind: 
" Would he have died for us if he had not loved 


134 


OLD PORTMANTEA U. 


us and wanted us for his own?” and linked with 
that came another sentence that he had often heard 
without any special thought of its meaning : “ Him 
that cometh unto me I will in nowise cast out.” 

“ That’s it ! His own words/’ reasoned Joe. 
“And that about his covenant: that means an 
agreement all written out; and I s’pose when any- 
body signs their name to it they’ve taken hold of 
it. Well, I will — I do — now. Lord, hear me!” 
Then came a consciousness of his own weakness 
and ignorance, and he added the silent prayer: 
“Lord, help me!” 

“I don’t know much nor how to put it into 
words,” he mused, “ but it only says 6 Come !’ and 
I have come, and that makes me one of his folks, 
for he’ll keep his promise. And I s’pose he will 
some way teach me the rest about it that he wants 
me to know.” 

The sun had vanished behind the hills, but its 
rosy light still flooded the sky; and as Joe left 
his seat and trudged on after the cows he looked 
away to the golden gates of the sunset with new 
feelings : 

“ He made it all — the same One that takes care 
of me. How great and good he is ! and I belong 
to him now. Why, it’s like having folks of my 
own at last, only better. W T hy didn’t I do it long 

ago?” 

Brindle, Whitey, Blossom and Daisy were gath- 
ered from their wanderings, and traveled slowly 


JOE’S CROSS-ROADS. 


135 


homeward in the sweet fading light, while Joe fol- 
lowed, softly whistling. 

“Took you a good while to find the cows to- 
night, ^ remarked Mr. Vance, carelessly, standing 
by the gate as they were driven into the yard. 

“Yes; not so long to find them, but I stopped 
by the way to find something else,” said Joe. 

“Did you find it?” questioned Teddy. 

“ I have found it,” Joe answered. 

But they did not notice the peculiar tone, nor 
dream that away in the pasture-lot he had found 
“the pearl of great price.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


A NIGHT AND A MORNING. 

HE bright summer weeks slipped silently 
away, and in the outer world all was beauty 
and peace. White daisies blossomed along 
the roadside, and in green fields the clover 
bloomed ; the vines at the portico grew and 
twined in luxuriant grace, and the roses at the 
window opened in fragrant loveliness. Day by 
day the sun came up over the river, turning its 
mists to gold, and nightly sank between the hills, 
closing behind him his gorgeous doors of rose and 
amber, beryl and amethyst. In the wood were 
cool mossy glades, where the birds sang exultantly 
and the brook murmured softly, as if in pleasant 
dreams. Insensibly Nature’s peace exerted its in- 
fluence upon the weary hearts that came in contact 
with it so constantly, and they grew calmer and 
stronger in patience, more trustful in Him who has 
made his covenant with the day and the night that 
they shall follow each other in their season — a token 
of that covenant with his people that cannot be 
broken. 

Mrs. Chester’s health was improving, Lizzie 

136 



A NIGHT AND A MORNING. 


137 


thought. Not that she seemed much stronger, 
though she insisted now upon relieving Mrs. 
Vance’s always overflowing work-basket of some 
of its contents and busied herself for hours with 
her needle. The look of pain was passing from 
her face and a more restful expression coming to 
it. 

“ Not as if she saw anything nearer by than she 
used to, but as if the far-away things were get- 
ting clearer and more peaceful-like,” thought Joe. 
“ Wonder, if I’d had a mother, if I’d ever have 
made her eyes look like that? — the sort of eyes 
that father must have had, I s’pose, in the story 
of the prodigal son, when he was always looking 
afar off for his boy to come home. Seeing who is 
meant by that father, though, why it ’most seems — ” 

Joe paused ; he had no words for the sudden 
revelation that came to him of the patient, tender, 
everlasting love that had watched him also in all 
his wanderings. 

Joe came home from the village post-office one 
day, and pausing by an open window — Mrs. Ches- 
ter’s window — placed in her hand a letter. It 
was from Rick, and was brief and unsatisfactory 
in everything save in the mere fact that he had 
written it himself. Perhaps his mother’s reply to 
the chaplain had won this communication, had 
made him falter in his resolution of silence. In 
truth, if she could have known it, a letter had been 
commenced and thrown aside many times before he 


138 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


had completed even this meagre one, which made 
no complaints, expressed no hopes and contained 
but a few sentences altogether. 

But Rick himself had written it, had penned the 
“ Dear mother ” with which it began, and that made 
it precious to her. She sat long with it in her 
hand — the hand that had been so hardened and 
toil-worn for her children’s sake, but had grown 
white and blue- veined in these last months. She 
sat with it open in her lap again in the evening 
when Lizzie sought her room — not re-reading it, 
for the apartment was illumined only with the 
moonlight that streamed through the window and 
lay white upon the floor. 

“ Mother dearest, if I could but lift you out of 
this cruel heartache !” cried the girl, her own heart 
pierced afresh by her mother’s attitude. 

“ You would do much, suffer much, for that, my 
Lizzie? Well, it is coming. I am growing more 
restful, sure that God will bring out of even this 
darkness light at last.” 

“ Oh, but nothing — no one — can ever make it as 
though it had not been. It can never be undone,” 
Lizzie said, speaking out the despairing thought 
that often tortured her. 

“Not undone — no; but 1 the blood of Jesus 
Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.’ It can 
cleanse from even this guilt; and it will. Rick 
will see it, and it will save him for this life and 
the next,” the mother answered in a tone of calm 


A NIGHT AND A MORNING. 


139 


confidence. “We are praying for him, Lizzie, you 
and I?” 

“ Surely. Every thought of him is a prayer.” 

“ ‘ If two of you shall agree on earth as touching 
anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for 
them of my Father which is in heaven/” Mrs. 
Chester repeated, slowly. “You do not forget 
that?” 

“No, mother; how can I, when those promises 
are my only comfort?” 

“And you will never give Rick up? He will 
need you yet — ” 

“ Will need us both,” Lizzie interposed, quickly. 

“But you are young yet; you can strengthen, 
aid and comfort him in many ways, and he will 
surely need you in the time that is coming. God 
made him your brother, Lizzie, and nothing can 
undo the tie. You will not forget that?” 

“ Dear mother, how can I ?” cried the girl again. 

“ I do not mean to pain you, dear, but the time 
may seem long in coming; you must not let your 
hope for him die, your faith in God’s promises fail. 
Promise me that you will not, Lizzie — that what- 
ever others may say, whatever new friendships you 
form, you will never give him up.” 

“ I never will. As if I ever could !” Lizzie 
answered. “ It is surely no new resolution, only 
putting into words what is always in my heart and 
yours. You could not think I would ever leave 
you alone in the love and the waiting, mother?” 


140 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


" No, not that. It is not that I doubt you, dear.” 
The mother hesitated. "It was only that I had a 
feeling to-night that it would comfort me to have 
you promise.” 

“ I do promise.” 

Lizzie leaned her cheek caressingly against one 
of the thin hands, and they sat in silence for a lit- 
tle while, until Mabel ran in for her " good-night 
kiss.” Then the mother spoke again, quietly and 
tenderly : 

" You are tired ; you must not sit here any lon- 
ger. Go with Mabel.” 

"And you?” Lizzie questioned. "You need 
rest too.” 

" Presently. I think I shall rest to-night, and 
sleep. Do not wait for me. Good-night, dear.” 

Then, as the girl arose to go, she detained her : 

" What was that little prayer, Lizzie — that 
Scotch version of ‘Now I lay me’ — that I heard 
you repeating yesterday?” 

"That is my prayer,” said Mabel, quickly, 
" But I like to say it another way, mamma, to 
mean us all : 

‘This night, as I lie down to sleep, 

I give us all to Christ to keep ; 

Wake I at inorn or wake I never, 

I give us all to Christ for ever.’ ” 

" Yes, that is better. ‘ I give us — all— to Christ 
— for ever/ " the mother repeated, slowly, pausing 


A NIGHT AND A MORNING. 


141 


between the words. Then she bade her daughters 
good-night, and they left her. 

In the morning, when the household gathered 
for breakfast in the pleasant old kitchen, where the 
breeze and the sunshine stole in together through 
the shadowing vines at the open door, they missed 
her. 

“ I’m glad if she is resting. Let her sleep as 
long as she will,” Mrs. Vance said. 

All the morning they went softly up and down 
stairs, and passed her room on tiptoe that she might 
remain undisturbed. But at last satisfaction in her 
long repose changed to wonder and vague alarm, 
and the closed door was gently opened. They 
found her still sitting by the window, Kick’s letter 
yet in her lap. She had indeed slept that night — 
so profoundly that no earthly morning would ever 
again awake her. 

Mrs. Vance’s exclamation, Lizzie’s moan and 
Mabel’s wild cry fell on deaf ears. They placed 
her on the bed, chafed the cold hands and feet and 
applied the simple restoratives within their reach, 
but it was useless; they felt it even while they 
strove so persistently to recall the vanished life. 
Mr. Vance was summoned from the field and Joe 
despatched to the village for medical aid, while the 
children gathered in the doorway, wondering and 
awe-stricken. 

Joe hastened on his errand, though he felt its 
hopelessness, and the physician soon arrived. He 


142 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


placed his fingers on the lifeless wrist, laid his ear 
to the silent heart and made a careful though rapid 
examination. Then he looked up, and met with 
grave pity Lizzie’s questioning eyes. 

“ Life is quite extinct; it must have been so for 
hours,” he said. 

There was nothing to be done. A few questions 
he asked, and expressed his conviction that there 
had been some malady of the heart — an opinion 
whose correctness none of his listeners doubted. 

It was ended now. The all-merciful Arms had 
done suddenly and for ever what Lizzie’s weak 
human ones had so longed to do but the night before 
— “ lifted her out of the heartache.” The repose 
of the still face was a protest against bitter lamen- 
tation. The wrinkles that time and care had made 
were smoothed away from the placid brow, the eyes 
softly shut from all tears, and about the lips a smile 
of perfect peace lingered. 

u You would do much, suffer much, for that, my 
Lizzie?” The question in the tender, familiar 
voice echoed in Lizzie’s heart and again and again 
checked her tears. What would she not have 
borne to have purchased relief and happiness for 
her mother? How could she now, looking upon 
that quiet slumber, selfishly wish her back to take up 
again the burden of grief and pain ? So her love 
struggled with her sorrow, and she strove, for her 
mother’s sake, to comfort herself and Mabel. 

The seldom-used parlor was thrown open, a few 


A NIGHT AND A MORNING. 


143 


friends aiul neighbors gathered in, and the white- 
haired old minister from the village spoke of the 
rest that remaineth for the people of God. Then 
along a quiet country road they bore the sleeper to 
her resting-place beneath the whispering trees. 

“ You will stay with us, Lizzie ; this must be 
your home now — yours and Mabel’s,” Mrs. Vance 
said, turning her tearful eyes away from the vacant 
chair by the window. 

“ I do not know, aunt ; I have not thought yet. 
It is all so strange, so sudden,” Lizzie answered, 
tremblingly. 

“ There is no need to think of that. "Where 
should you stay but here, where we love you and 
want you ? To have you with me as an elder 
daughter will be a great help and comfort, Liz- 
zie.” 

She spoke sincerely. She had found Lizzie’s 
companionship very pleasant, and her care and as- 
sistance about the children a great relief. She had 
looked forward regretfully to the time when the 
visit would end and she must miss the ready sym- 
pathy and quiet, skillful fingers in her round of 
household duties; and now that her sister’s death 
had left the girls with no nearer friends, she claim- 
ed them gladly, and Mr. Vance warmly seconded 
her wishes. The farmhouse was large, and if not 
a luxurious home it possessed all needed comforts; 
there was enough for them all, he said. 

But as the days passed and she could think more 


144 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


clearly, Lizzie, trained to self-support, shrank from 
being entirely dependent upon her uncle. It would 
be better for her, too, to be busied with some steady, 
regular employment ; and there was another reason 
also — a thought of Rick — reaching vaguely into 
the future, which made her long for some income 
of her own. She wished to remain at the farm ; 
it seemed more homelike to her now than any other 
place could. She dreaded going away from these 
her nearest friends, and it would be a lonely life 
to which she could take Mabel ; but she was sure 
that she could not obtain sewing there as she had 
done in town. 

“You can do better than that, I think,” her 
uncle said when finally she frankly discussed the 
subject with him. “ If you wish to do something 
for yourself, why not take our school here ? Would 
not teaching do as well as sewing? If you think 
you can be more content in doing some such work, 
we will not oppose it, Lizzie; only make your 
home with us.” 

“Do you think I could do that, uncle? Am I 
competent? I never thought of trying to do it at 
home.” 

“ Because the ranks were crowded, for one thing, 
I suppose, and it took a more varied list of acquire- 
ments, perhaps, than we demand here. We only 
ask for common branches, and I’m pretty certain 
you could do better than some teachers we have 
had.” Mr. Vance nodded his head emphatically ; 


A NIGHT AND A MORNING. 


145 


he had great faith in Lizzie’s ability. “ I know 
I’d be satisfied to have you teach my children.” 

“ If I could do it,” she said, earnestly, “ I’d like 
it, I’m sure — like it better than anything I. know. 
And I could study, too.” 

“ Well, we’ll see about it at once. There’s no 
one engaged for our winter term. I’m one of the 
trustees, you know, and I think we can manage to 
give you a trial, anyhow,” the old farmer answered, 
well pleased to have pleased her. “ I’ll see some 
of the others to-morrow.” 

He fulfilled his promise promptly, and through 
his influence the new applicant found little diffi- 
culty in securing the situation. A brief examina- 
tion and an interview with the members of the 
committee resulted in her appointment, bestowed 
all the more readily because she was to make her 
home among them, and might, if successful, hold 
the place for a considerable time. They were dis- 
satisfied with constant change. 

“ For,” one of the committee sagely observed, 
u we have had too many cooks spoiling our broth 
lately. Just as soon as a teacher got the children 
all trained into doing things one way we changed 
teachers, and then it took all the next term to un- 
learn and get ready to start on a new tack.” 

So the matter was settled, to the great satisfac- 
tion of every one at the farm, and not unpleasantly 
for Lizzie. No pleasure could seem to her more 
than negative then. She wrote to Rick of their 
10 


146 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


mother’s death, allowing the tidings to reach him 
first only through her own loving letter, giving all 
the little details that were so hard to write. 

The answer was sad enough : 

“ I knew that I had killed her ; it did not need 
your letter to tell me that : I knew it when I went 
away. I might almost find something like comfort 
in knowing that no thought of me can ever trouble 
her again but that you and Mabel are motherless 
and desolate. I have robbed and ruined every life 
that touched mine. Don’t waste any words of con- 
solation on me, Lizzie ; they are worse than useless. 
If you could only forget me ! I would pray for 
that if I could pray for anything.” 

It was well for Lizzie that the duties before 
her were new and that she felt they called for a 
thoughtful laying of plans and review of old stud- 
ies. These occupied her mind and furnished em- 
ployment during the long days that would oth- 
erwise have held too much leisure for grief. 

One hard task confronted her before her school 
life began : since they were to remain in the 
country, there must be a final arranging and dis- 
posal of everything left in the old home. So one 
bright morning in the early autumn Mrs. Vance 
and Lizzie opened the long-closed doors. 

How desolate the rooms looked ! — more desolate 
than empty ones, for these bore everywhere the 
traces of occupants who would never come again. 
Lizzie wandered through them in dumb, bewildered 


A NIGHT AND A MORNING. 


147 


pain. Here in the familiar rooms, with tokens of 
the old life all around her, it was hard to realize 
that everything had changed — that the family life, 
broken off so suddenly, was never to be resumed. 
The pillow on the lounge lay just as her mother’s 
head had pressed it; paper and pencil were on the 
table where Mabel’s careless hand had dropped 
them ; and through the open door of a closet peep- 
ed a pair of slippers — Rick’s. 

Lizzie bowed her head upon her hands. What 
happy hours they had known here long ago, an 
unbroken, peaceful family ! What bitter scenes of 
suffering these walls had witnessed since ! 

“ Lizzie, child, it must be done,” the aunt said at 
length, breaking in upon the flow of memories — 
not unkindly, for her own eyes were moist. That 
little word “must” was but the truth; they were 
to return in the evening, and the work, however 
sad, must be done quickly. 

It was well that garments must be speedily fold- 
ed with but a glance at them ; that books must be 
packed with no time to look at pencilings ; that the 
melodeon was sent away hastily and the music 
gathered up unsorted. Phrony, notified before, 
came to assist them, and with her strong and will- 
ing hands lightened the task. 

While they were packing trunks and boxes some 
one came to the door, and Phrony, opening it, re- 
vealed the old temperance itinerant, portmanteau 
in hand. He paused on the threshold at the signs 


148 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


of removal, and then, as lie recognized Phrony and 
glanced at Lizzie’s black dress, he seemed to com- 
prehend what house he was entering and recall 
what he had heard. 

“ You here, child ?” to Phrony. “ Is this the 
place? Another home ruined for that accursed 
traffic’s sake!” 

He drew back, and turned away without another 
word. 

Boxes were filled and sent away, some articles 
of furniture sold, some stored and others removed 
to the farm — all disposed of by nightfall and the 
empty house locked and deserted. Lizzie turned 
for a farewell look, glancing instinctively at the 
window from which her mother’s face had so often 
watched for her coming — from which they had 
both so often watched for Pick’s unsteady steps. 
How much of weary waiting had come into that 
dear life ! 

“ But ten years will not seem long to her in 
heaven — not hard to wait for now,” she murmured. 
“ I will try to be brave, patient and faithful.” 

So she turned her face toward the new life, and 
a voice, growing ever nearer and clearer, spoke to 
her soul ; “ I will not leave you comfortless.” 


CHAPTER X. 


TEACHING AND LEARNING. 

AS o 

r Ittlli HEX the dry, rustling leaves began to lie 
6)1 1 1 thickly over the walks and the squirrels 
tllllJ whisked along the fences, bearing home their 
winter stores, when the summer flowers had 
vanished and only a few drooping chrysan- 
themums remained in the garden and straggling 
sprays of golden-rod by the brookside in the 
meadow, — the little country school opened for its 
winter term. With inward shrinking and outward 
calm, a mingling of hope and misgiving, Lizzie set 
forth one bright morning to take possession of her 
new realm, escorted by a body of home-guards — 
the four children from the farm. Mabel marched 
along the road with not a little added dignity be- 
cause of her sister’s high position ; Teddy and 
Kip were considering the probability of finding 
increased facilities for mischief in the fact that 
Cousin Lizzie was to be the teacher. She might 
be inclined to unusual leniency because of relation- 
ship, but then, on the other hand, she would have 
uncomfortably numerous opportunities for reporting 


150 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


misdeeds at home, and would be sure of a hearing, 
too. Teddy sighed at this reflection, and thrust a 
potato-gun of marvelous power farther into the 
depth of his pocket. The pleasure of firing an 
occasional shot with it in school-hours, however, 
was too great to be abandoned. He resolved to 
sound Lizzie’s principles by a little skillful ques- 
tioning, so he walked gravely beside her: 

“ I don’t s’pose you mean to have one of these 
awful partic’lar schools where it’s against the rules 
to have any fun or anything, do you, Cousin Liz- 
zie?” 

“ I mean to have as good a school as I can, Ted- 
dy, and it must be orderly to be worth anything. 
I shall expect you all to help me,” said Lizzie, pleas- 
antly. 

That, as Teddy confided to Kip afterward, 
“ wasn’t the right answer ;” it silenced him for a 
moment, and then he observed, 

“ Well, when things don’t go just right, you 
know, I think talkin’s to is a great deal better’n 
ferulin’s and such — does a feller more good.” 

“ Why, Teddy, is it possible that you have ever 
tried both ?” asked Lizzie in a tone of astonishment, 
but with a slight twitching at the corners of her 
mouth. 

“Well, you see,” explained Teddy, rather abash- 
ed, “ we’ve had all sorts of teachers, and they’ve 
had all sorts of ways, and I don’t see how anybody 
could know what they was goin’ to do next. Any 


TEACHING AND LEARNING. 


151 


way, I don’t b’lieve some of ’em would have thought 
they was keepin’ school unless somebody was catch- 
ing it, and course I wasn’t going to shirk out all the 
time and leave it all for the other fellers,” he con- 
cluded, with a burst of heroism. 

Sis was much excited by it. She had never at- 
tended school, but was to go now because there was 
such an excellent opportunity offered with Lizzie 
to take care of her. She viewed this era in her 
history as a very important one, and was greatly 
impressed by the gravity of her spelling-book and 
the responsibility of carrying a small dinner-basket. 
She surveyed her brother with admiration, but re- 
marked, with solemn eyes and a warlike tone, 

“ If I’d been there and anybody’d struck my 
Teddy, I’d a-frowed a slate-pencil right at ’em. 
My! didn’t you be scared?” 

Teddy glanced at his defender rather doubtfully. 
He would have warned her of the danger of open 
rebellion had the new teacher been any other than 
Cousin Lizzie. As it was, he returned to his origi- 
nal point and concluded to give a delicate hint : 

“ Say, I think telling on folks is kind of mean, 
don’t you? I think ’twould be a real good rule 
not to tell tales out of school — for all of us, you 
know.” 

“Why, Teddy, I don’t mean to do anything 
that I shall be ashamed to have told, do you?’* 
asked Lizzie, looking straight into his eyes. 

Teddy was not sure, and he did not quite like 


152 


OLD PORTMANTEA U. 


that way of putting it. He discovered a small 
stone in the road that called for his immediate at- 
tention, and directly after an old stamp that offered 
a tempting target at which to throw it. He became 
too much absorbed to answer the question, and the 
subject dropped. But before they reached their 
destination he loitered behind the others long 
enough to deposit his potato-gun in a hollow tree 
for safekeeping, resolving to carry it home at night 
and leave it there to await further developments. 

A plain, unpretentious building was the little 
school -house, quite removed from other houses, 
surrounded by a few great trees, almost leafless now, 
its grounds unenclosed and sloping down to a 
narrow brook, in which the children delighted. 
Groups of hats and sun-bonnets were bobbing about 
on the steps and under the trees when the party 
from the farm arrived, and curious eyes scanned 
the new teacher. 

“ Looks sorter ’s if you could, and then again 
sorter ’s if you couldn’t; and I don’t know which 
it’ll be,” commented one astute young critic as Liz- 
zie passed by and unlocked the school-house door. 
“She’s kinder thin -like, but she’s got eyes.” 

The school-room was not very attractive — win- 
dows too high for most childish eyes to reach them, 
wooden desks and benches hacked and carved by 
many a jack-knife, a rusty stove, walls decorated 
by maps and a dusty blackboard, and, lastly, a 
platform surmounted by the teacher’s chair and 





The Country School House 


Page 1.52 




















































TEACHING AND LEARNING. 


153 


table. Lizzie surveyed the room for a moment, 
taking in all its bare and homely details; then, 
dropping into the chair, she leaned her head upon 
the table, while the tears came to her eyes : 

“ How different it would seem if I could only go 
home at night — to my own home — and tell mother 
all about it 1” 

Then a fragment of an old poem floated comfort- 
ingly through her mind : 

“ Eyes watch us that we may not see, 

Lips warn us that we may not kiss ; 

They love us still, and starrily 

Bend toward 11s from heaven’s lattices. 

Though earthly forms be far apart, 

Spirit to spirit may be nigher, 

The music-chord the same at heart 

Though one should range an octave higher.” 

“ She will know T — only none of the pain of it,” 
she added, wdth a smile, though with her lips still 
quivering. “ Well done of God to halve the lot 
and give her all the sweetness !” 

Again her head w r as bowed in prayer for strength 
and guidance, and then, grown calmer and with 
the tears banished from her eyes, she arranged the 
books she had brought and summoned with the old 
bell the subjects of her kingdom. 

Hats, hoods, shawls and dinner-pails were de- 
posited on the rows of hooks in the hall, and the 
children hurried in, turning all their eyes — blue, 
gray, brown and nondescript — toward the teacher, 


154 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


who felt for the first time what a variety of shade 
and expression was possible to those organs. Then 
came the tedious work, requiring both tact and 
patience, of ascertaining acquirements and arrang- 
ing seals and classes. Lizzie had no previous expe- 
rience to guide her, but she had a strong fund of 
common sense and quick intuition, and was well 
satisfied that there should be little study the first 
day except her study of the children and their 
study of her. 

As the school was nearly a mile from the farm, 
she and her home-quartette had brought lunch-bas- 
kets with them, and did not return at noon. Many 
of the children lived at a greater distance, and re- 
mained also; and Lizzie improved the noon-time 
by making their acquaintance, talking with them 
and initiating them into some new games. This 
filled all the hour she would have liked for soli- 
tude, but it was better for her as well as for the 
children. 

In the afternoon Joe came. As he could not 
attend school regularly, he had seldom attended at 
all. “ Only a hired-boy with no folks of his own,” 
as he used to say, his opportunities had been few. 
Knowledge of a certain sort — practical information 
about all life and work by which he was surround- 
ed — he had always craved, but since the Chesters 
came he had awakened to a new appreciation of 
the knowledge contained in books and an eagerness 
to acquire it. It had been arranged that he should 


TEACHING AND LEARNING. 


155 


spend what time he could at the school — whole 
days or half days, as he could be spared from his 
work — and Lizzie had promised also to help him 
at home. 

Lizzie’s face brightened at his coming, and all 
that afternoon she felt his presence a support and 
encouragement. It was a comfort to glance toward 
the desk where he bent over his books so steadily, 
sure that she had at least one earnest student, and 
that he was also a staunch friend who would lend 
her all the aid in his power. 

A busy day it was, and night found her tired but 
hopeful and full of plans for improvement. The 
children passed quietly out at the first door and 
then bounded joyously through the second, all 
shouting, talking and laughing together as they 
reached the open air, until their voices died away 
in the distance and the old building grew silent as it 
had been in the morning. Joe lingered while Liz- 
zie arranged the room and gathered up her books. 

“ Did you have a good time to-day, Teddy ?” he 
asked as they passed out and found the four chil- 
dren waiting on the steps. 

“Y-e-s, pretty good,” answered Teddy, slowly, 
hesitating between his desire to please Cousin Liz- 
zie and to speak the truth ; “ but I sort of wish 
Saturdays was put thicker into the weeks — ’bout 
every other day. I think,” pursued Teddy, reflec- 
tively, “ that teaching is real hard on folks. I 
knew a teacher one time that was just as pale as 


156 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


a sheet; and if I was Cousin Lizzie, I wouldn’t 
never go when I had a headache or anything. I’d 
shut up the whole school first.” 

Joe laughed at the disinterested advice, but Liz- 
zie’s smile ended in a sigh as she remembered how 
often lately these “ headaches ” had been offered as 
an excuse for not sharing in the pleasures and pur- 
suits to which the children had so eagerly urged 
her, how she had selfishly cherished her own grief 
and shrank from arousing herself for others. This 
must not be now; real, earnest work had been put 
into her hand, and she must yield no more to 
weakness. “ Useful work !” The words strength- 
ened and comforted her as she whispered them to 
herself, beginning to realize that life could not be 
empty or joyless while it held good, true work for 
the Master. 

Sis and the two boys traveled merrily along the 
homeward way, running races through the strip of 
wood and making an occasional detour in search 
of nut trees where the squirrels might have left 
something for them. Mabel sometimes accom- 
panied them with a burst of childish lighthearted- 
ness, sometimes, with the growing thoughtfulness 
born of her early loss, dropped back quietly again 
to her sister’s side. 

“ Well, how did it go, Miss Lizzie?” asked Joe, 
breaking a long silence. 

“ Very well, I believe, for the first day,” Lizzie 
answered, thoughtfully. “But I shall want to 


TEACHING AND LEARNING. 


157 


change many things, to improve so much, and — 
Oh, J oe, I know so little about it ! I have had no 
experience.” 

“ But God knows all about it. Don’t you s’pose 
when he gives folks any work to do — his folks, 
you know — that he helps and teaches them how? 
I mean,” said Joe, earnestly, “like the prophets 
and men in the Bible — Moses and Elijah and Gid- 
eon. AVhy, when he told them what to do, he 
told them how, and helped them, too. Don’t you 
think he does it yet?” 

“ Yes, I suppose he does. Oh, I know he will,” 
she added in a different tone as she caught Joe’s 
anxiously earnest gaze. “He has said so: ‘ In all 
thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy 
paths .’ — ‘ If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask 
of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and up- 
braideth not; and it shall be given him.’” 

“I’m glad of that,” said Joe, simply. “You 
see, it means a good deal to a boy that hasn’t any 
other help if he has that,” he added, triumphantly. 

“ He sometimes helps us by sending us the help 
of others.” 

“ Then I think he must have sent you here,” Joe 
answered, after a moment’s thought, recognizing the 
benefit that had come to himself so quietly that 
Lizzie had no need to answer ; but the little sen- 
tence touched her and made her both grateful and 
humble. How little she had thought, amid her 
own griefs and burdens, of trying to help any one ! 


158 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


And had she been permitted, even in her self-ab- 
sorption, to bless in any way another life? 

“ I guess I’ll go round by the post-office,” re- 
marked Joe as they came to the road that turned 
toward the village. 

“I wish you would, if you have time,” Lizzie 
answered, quickly. 

Letters to the farm were not very numerous, and 
Joe visited the office more frequently for Lizzie’s 
sake than for any other reason. She never spoke of 
her constant anxiety to hear from Rick, but he un- 
derstood it by her questioning eyes when any one 
had been to village, by her walks thither when 
there was no one else to go, and by the many let- 
ters she sent — letters slipped into his hand for 
mailing without a word. The replies were of rare 
occurrence, yet all the same Lizzie watched for 
them. 

Mabel was with the other children in advance, 
but as she saw Joe turn down the village road she 
fell back at once to her sister’s side, and her face 
settled into the gravity that Lizzie was only lately 
beginning to notice. 

“Why didn’t you stay with the others, dear?” 
she asked. “ I thought you were having a nice 
time.” 

“But I didn’t want to leave you to be sorry all 
alone,” Mabel answered. “ Lizzie,” suddenly look- 
ing up into her face and speaking out the thought 
that had troubled her, “ do you think it’s right for 


TEACHING AND LEARNING. 


159 


me to forget sometimes, and laugh and play with 
the rest, when mamma is dead, you know — and 
Rick ?” 

“ Oh, Mabel, yes. Be as happy as you can, 
dear. God gives you the pleasant things that 
come into your life, and surely it is right to enjoy 
them. It would be ungrateful to turn away from 
all we have because some precious things have been 
taken from us,” Lizzie answered, quickly, pained 
that the childish heart should be shadowed by such 
a thought. “ For Rick, we trust him to our Father 
in heaven, and we must try to be patient in our 
trust. And dear mamma, we know God took her 
away to his own home in heaven ; and ought we 
always to mourn for that? Do you remember that 
verse: ‘God loveth a cheerful giver*? I think it 
means in anything he asks from us — service or 
money or things far dearer. He does not want us 
to be always sorrowful, Mabel, refusing all comfort 
in what we have, but to be as brave and cheerful 
as we can.” 

“ I didn’t know you thought that way,” said 
Mabel, wonderingly. “Why, you didn’t seem so, 
Lizzie; you’ve looked so sad, just as if you never 
could be glad any more, and you sat so still and 
lonesome by the window evenings, and wouldn’t go 
when the rest went to walk, as if you didn’t care 
about any pleasant things ; and when I looked 
back and saw you, I didn’t want to go, either. 
And when I laughed and played for a little while, 


160 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


it made me feel as if I had been wicked — as if I 
didn’t love mamma ; but I did, I do !” 

“ I know it, dear ; she knows it too. You can- 
not think it would please her to see you unhappy?” 
Lizzie answered, feeling the reproof so unconscious- 
ly given. She must no more darken this young 
life with her own gloom, nor any of those that 
surrounded her. 

Her first day of teaching ! It had been to her a 
day of learning rather, she thought, reviewing all 
its incidents, and she reached home with new 
resolutions to strive against her own sadness that 
she might cheer and help others. 

“ I guess the school agrees with you ; it seems to 
have brightened you up a good deal,” Mrs. Vance 
remarked, noting at once, with pleased surprise, the 
cheerful reply to her greeting. “ Well, how did it 
go?” 

It was not like telling her mother about it; Liz- 
zie felt that while she recounted the day’s occur- 
rences. There was not the same quick appreciation 
of difficulties, not the same delicate sympathy, but 
she would not allow herself to think of that as she 
recalled such items as would interest her aunt and 
uncle. 

Joe came in presently, and remarked generally, 
though designing his communication chiefly for one, 

“ I’ve been round to the post-office. No letters 
for us to-day.” 

“ It’s well enough to look, of course, but I don’t 


TEACHING AND LEARNING. 


161 


know of any of us that expected any,” answered 
Mr. Vance, comfortably, unfolding the paper that 
Joe handed to him. 

Lizzie knew; she was always expecting letters, 
notwithstanding all the days of disappointed wait- 
ing. She sighed now, but did not go away to 
mourn over the silence that so pained her. 

“ ‘ When thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash 
thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast.’ I 
wonder if that means nothing more than fasting 
from food for the body ?” Lizzie said, thoughtfully, 
as she read the words in her own room that even- 
ing. “ When heart and soul must hunger for the 
things that would be sweetness and strength, is not 
the command still the same — to go among others 
with serene face, appearing not unto them to fast, 
and letting only the ‘ Father that seeth in secret y 
know what our lives miss and crave?” 

As the autumn weeks passed the little school 
grew in order and its teacher gained in experience; 
the old walls grew familiar and the plain room 
almost homelike. Duties were simplified and the 
restless young mortals who thronged the place more 
easily governed when the strange faces grew into 
those of familiar acquaintances whose peculiarities 
and temperaments she knew. She put heart and 
soul into her work, doing honestly her best, and 
began to reap the fruit in evident success. 

We may judge our busy, hurried days by what 
we allow to be crowded out of them, a thoughtful 
11 


162 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


writer has suggested, and more and more out of 
these full days of Lizzie’s self was crowded. She 
had little time for repining at her own losings or 
sufferings. Loving thought indeed clung always 
around her mother, and prayerful thought reached 
out constantly toward Rick, but she had few idle 
hours in which to question why such grief and 
bereavement had befallen her, while other lives 
were seemingly unclouded. 

“I used to think I could let nothing that hap- 
pened me go out of my thoughts until I understood 
all the whys and wherefores ; I wanted to straight- 
en everything out myself. Now I am content to 
drop many of the tangles into God’s hand and 
leave them there,” she said to Joe one day when 
he plunged into bewildering questioning. 

Joe was improving rapidly in those days; study- 
ing eagerly — “ to make up for lost time,” as he 
said — acquiring unconsciously a new manner and 
language from the books he read, and developing 
a fund of practical thought and originality. 

“ It seems a pity I’ve got to take it in bits so, 
don’t it?” he said, referring to the half days and 
odd hours that were the most he could have at 
school ; “ seems like making hash of it. But 
then,” he added, courageously, “ I suppose, if a 
fellow’s too poor to afford a whole roast, he can live 
on hash, and grow strong on it, too.” 

“ Especially if he has a better appetite for the 
hash than richer people have for the roast,” said 


TEACHING AND LEARNING. 


163 


Lizzie, smiling. “ You are doing well, Joe; this 
writing is a great improvement upon last week’s.” 

She lent him books and gave him lessons in the 
evenings, and was beginning to count Joe, notwith- 
standing his irregular attendance, her most promis- 
ing pupil. Her first efforts to assist him, bestowed 
in half-languid kindliness, had changed to hearty 
interest, and Joe’s grateful admiration for her knew 
no bounds. He had never known mother’s or 
sister’s care, and Lizzie’s three years’ seniority en- 
abled her to advise and talk with him of his plans 
for the future in an elder-sisterly fashion that was 
to the lonely boy a new experience. 

“ I don’t see how your brother Richard, when he 
had such a mother and sister, could ever have be- 
gun to do anything they didn’t want him to,” he 
remarked, wonderingly, to Mabel one day. 

“ Well, I think folks often care most about things 
when they don’t have them,” answered Mabel, 
speaking with deeper wisdom than she knew. 

Poor Rick ! Whatever love or care he really 
felt for these sisters left to him, he seldom mani- 
fested it in a way that was of any comfort to them. 
Weeks and months often passed without any word 
from him — long silences in pursuance of his resolu- 
tion to sever all ties between them, and brief, un- 
satisfactory letters when that resolution wavered. 


CHAPTER XI. 


BROTHER AND SISTER . 


LL the autumn and winter Lizzie taught 
steadily, studying also the while, and learn- 
ing much, too, from the unwritten books of 



human nature and experience. Her success 
had satisfied those who employed her, and 


words of commendation had reached her from va- 
rious sources. It was no longer an experiment : 
her position was assured. And now spring had 
come with bright sunshine and budding trees, 
bringing a vacation. 

“ See how rich I am said Lizzie, returning 
home on the last day of the term and playfully 
exhibiting the check that had been given her in 
payment for her services. 

“Now, if you could only take that and go off 
on a trip somewhere and get rested, that is what I 
should like,” said her aunt. 

Lizzie had a plan — one that had slowly grown 
from a wish into a purpose ; but she strongly sus- 
pected that it would not meet her aunt’s approval, 
and she shrank from mentioning it. It must be 
done, however, or the hope abandoned ; and look- 


BROTHER AND SISTER. 


165 


ing thoughtfully at the precious bit of paper, she 
said, 

“ There is one place where I should like to go 
— where I have thought of going.” 

“ I am glad of it,” answered Mrs. Vance, 
unsuspiciously. “A journey will do you good. 
Where?” 

“ To see Rick.” 

Mrs. Vance stitched on in silence for a minute 
or two, then, with a nervous twitch, broke her 
thread and looked up : 

“ Lizzie, I wouldn’t.” 

“ Why not?” asked Lizzie, quietly. It was a 
painful question, but she felt that the subject 
must be discussed. 

“ I don’t believe he wants to see you, for one 
thing ; the way he acts about writing doesn’t look 
much like it.” 

The words hurt, but they were true, and Lizzie 
answered in a still lower tone: 

“Perhaps not. I do not so much think he 
wants to see me as that he needs to see me ; and 
I do want to see him.” 

Mr. Vance had entered in time to hear the last 
sentence, and his wife turned toward him uneasily : 

“ We were talking about Richard. Lizzie wants 
to go and see him this vacation.” 

She did not add, “Did you ever hear anything 
so vexatious and unreasonable?” but her tone said 
it. 


166 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“ I could go, couldn’t I, uncle?” Lizzie asked. 
“ Persons are allowed to visit the — there?” 

“ Yes, I suppose so,” he answered, slowly. 
“But, Lizzie, what is the use? What good will 
it do ?” 

The tears started to her eyes : 

“ I do not know, uncle ; perhaps not any, except 
that I shall see for myself how he is. But it may 
do him some good to see a home-face again, and — 
I love him.” 

The farmer leaned against the wall and looked 
at her in some perplexity : 

“It isn’t a pleasant thing to say, Lizzie, but I 
may as well speak the truth. Seeing all that’s 
happened and the sort of life he led the last year 
or two he was free, I can’t help thinking that Hick 
is in the place that’s best for him, and you and 
Mabel are far better off without him. It’s a pity, 
but he has chosen his own lot, and you can’t help 
it; you can’t make him different, and the only 
wise thing to do now is to let him go. Suppose 
you hold fast to him all through the ten years, and 
he lives to come out of prison ; what then ? The 
probability is that he will be more reckless and 
hardened than ever. Prisons shut men out of 
mischief, but they don’t reform them very often. 
Would you go back to the old life again and take 
Mabel into it too?” 

“ N o, but it will not be. I cannot believe that 
he is utterly lost. Oh, uncle, he is young yet, and 


BROTHER AND SISTER. 


167 


he did care for us, only that he was so enslaved — 
wicked, I know, but weak and tempted, and after- 
ward maddened and despairing. And he is my 
brother — it is no question of my choosing; I can- 
not make him less than that — my only brother,” 
Lizzie answered, choking back her tears. “ I can 
never give him up.' God does answer prayer, and 
I believe he will yet grant ours for Rick, mother’s 
and mine. ‘If two of you shall agree on earth as 
touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be 
done for them of my Father which is in heaven.’ 
They were almost her last words to me. I do not 
know how others may explain them away, but to 
me they mean just what they say. I have trusted 
the Lord’s own promise, and I am sure he will 
keep it.” 

The last sentence was spoken confidently. It 
was rare for the gentle Lizzie to be so outspoken 
in her faith, and her tone and look, as well as the 
words, touched her aunt. They were only rather 
worldly-wise and practical people, this uncle and 
aunt ; they were not hard-hearted. 

Mr. Vance blew his nose with considerable ve- 
hemence and looked out of the window a moment ; 
then he said, 

“Well, my dear, I hope it may be so, I’m sure. 
The mon^ 7 is your own, and the brother is also 
your own, as you say, and you must do what you 
think best. I have only told you how it seemed 
to me, because, you know, you are almost like a 


168 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


daughter to us; but of course we do not want to 
prevent your doing what you think is right.” 

“No. If you want to go and think it’s best, 
that’s all there is of it,” added her aunt, “though 
I don’t suppose it’s the sort of trip that will rest 
you or brighten you up much.” 

Nothing more than this reluctant consent could 
be hoped for, and Lizzie accepted it with a sigh. 
There were no further efforts to dissuade her from 
going, but all the ensuing week, in which she was 
sewing and making her simple preparations for 
her journey, the silent disapproval weighed upon 
her. She did not waver in her purpose, for she felt 
that she was right, and yet the sensitive spirit was 
troubled, and she strove to accomplish so much for 
them all, to do so many things that would lighten 
her aunt’s home-cares during her absence, that at 
last Mrs. Vance said, 

“ Child, don’t act as if you must do everything 
under the canopy to atone for going. I don’t know 
as I blame you much, but I wish you didn’t feel 
so ; and that’s all there is of it.” 

Only Mabel and Joe gave her full sympathy, 
and only to them did she speak freely of her plans. 
Joe was to drive her to the station, and Mabel beg- 
ged to accompany her so far also. It had required 
some self-sacrifice for the little maiden to acquiesce 
in her sister’s going, for she had never been sep- 
arated from her sister before. In truth, Mrs, 
Vance secretly wished Mabel had shown less un- 


BROTHER AND SISTER. 


169 


selfishness ; she thought her tears and protestations 
might have prevented the journey. 

But however they regarded the errand upon 
which she was going, all the family loved Lizzie. 
Mrs. Vance stood on the front steps, the boys were 
perched on the fence and Sis was swinging on the 
front gate when Mr. Vance assisted the girls into 
the light wagon. Then, as Joe touched up his 
horses, the children broke forth in a chorus of 
good-byes that continued until the wagon was quite 
out of sight. Joe and Mabel waited at the station 
until the train came and they saw Lizzie comfort- 
ably seated in it. Mabel bade good-bye very quietly, 
only whispering with her parting kiss, 

“ Don’t stay so very long, Lizzie, and tell Kick 
I do love him too.” 

But it was a sober face that occupied the seat 
beside Joe as they started on their homeward ride, 
and she remarked, 

“I wish I could have gone too, only Lizzie 
didn’t have money enough; and I knew she 
couldn’t take me, any way, so I didn’t say a word 
about it ; but over a week is a pretty long time to 
do without any sister.” 

“ If you think that’s long,” said Joe, “ how 
would you do without any for a whole year, or for 
all your life, as I’ve had to do?” 

“Oh dear! I don’t know. Didn’t you ever 
have any ? or father or mother or anybody ?” ask- 
ed Mabel. 


170 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“ Not that I know anything about. You see,” 
explained Joe, driving slowly and striving to recall 
early impressions, “ the very first thing I can re- 
member is standing with a little crowd of folks 
and seeing them lower a box into the ground and 
cover it up. I think likely they must have been 
burying some of my folks then. After that I was 
in a place where there were some other children — 
half a dozen or so. Seems as if I can almost see 
that room sometimes. It had a bare floor and an 
old battered-up fireplace and a window that looked 
out on black chimneys. There was a woman that 
used to come home nights — I suppose she took care 
of us — and a man used to come sometimes. He 
talked loud and stormed about, and the children 
were afraid of him and got out of the way when 
he was there. I can remember creeping ’way back 
in a corner under a table. I suppose he was drunk, 
only I was too little to know what was the matter.” 

“And don’t you think that woman was your 
mother?” asked Mabel. 

“ No. I’ll tell you why : One day we were 
walking along a road somewhere — it couldn’t have 
been very far from here — -just us two. I don’t 
know where we were going or what for, but I 
guess I couldn’t have been in the country much 
before, for I was so pleased with the white daisies 
that grew beside the road, and gathered my hands 
full of them. By and by the woman began to say 
she was sick, and she grew worse and worse, until 


BROTHER AND SISTER. 


171 


at last she couldn’t go any farther, and dropped 
down beside a fence. After a while a man came 
along with a wagon, talked to her a little, and then 
took us both to the work-house. The woman got 
better in a few days and went away, but she said I 
wasn’t her child; that my mother was a poor 
strange lady that had died in their street and she 
had taken me in, thinking some one would claim 
me, and she had more young ones of her own than 
she could take care of. Then I went to be chore- 
boy for a doctor — hold his horse and run errands, 
you know — and I lived with him until he moved 
away. I didn’t like the work-house, any way, and 
I thought I was big enough to look out for myself, 
so I hunted round a while, and at last got a place 
with Mr. Vance. That’s all the folks I ever had, 
and all 1 know about them,” concluded Joe. 

Mabel looked at him pityingly : 

“Well, I think you are a real good boy, Joe, 
and I know your folks would have liked you ever 
so much if you’d had any. I’m sorry you haven’t. 
Why, I’ll be your sister !” she added, brightening 
with a sudden thought. “I’d just as lief as not. 
Here, would this go on your little finger?” she 
questioned, drawing a small coral ring from her 
hand. 

“Not much,” answered Joe, looking at the tiny 
circlet and then at his own brown hand. 

“ Never mind ; you can put it in your pocket- 
book, then.” 


172 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“ I haven’t any. You. see, I haven’t had much 
use for one so far,” added Joe, half quizzically, 
half pathetically. 

“ Haven’t you any place you can keep it?” 

“Oh yes, plenty of them.” 

“ Then you put it away, and keep it always to re- 
member by — that Mabel Chester is your folks — 
and then you won’t be so lonely.” 

If Joe did not think the offered sistership could 
altogether compensate for all the missings of his 
life, he did not say so, but appreciated the kindness, 
and slipping the ring carefully into his pocket said, 

“ I will keep it — you may be sure of that. It’s 
a good thing to have friends, and I haven’t felt 
much lonesome since you’ve been at the farm.” 

Speeding across the country, Lizzie looked out 
upon meadows lying soft and green under the 
bright sunshine, upon waters reflecting the blue 
of the sky, and strips of woodland where the trees 
were donning their summer attire. Spring, joyous 
and beautiful, was gladdening all the landscape 
again — just such a day as those weary ones in the 
court-room one year before. She was to remain in 
the city over-night with the family of Mr. George 
Vance, and take the cars for her final destination 
the next day. Her uncle had urged this arrange- 
ment. 

The plan was distasteful to Lizzie. She shrank 
from becoming a guest in George Vance’s home 
even for so brief a time. She could not, however, 


BROTHER AND SISTER. 


173 


urge to his father the fact that he was associated 
with so much that was painful to her; and having 
no reasonable opposition to offer, she submitted 
with only a faint protest when her uncle wrote 
him to meet her at the depot. 

She knew little of Mr. Vance’s family, a wife 
and only daughter. She had seldom met them, and 
did not recognize on reaching the city the slender 
little figure that, sauntering past groups of passen- 
gers, paused before her, and coolly scrutinizing her 
face with a pair of great black eyes asked, 

“ Are you Miss Chester ?” 

Lizzie wonderingly answered in the affirmative, 
and the girl — she seemed about Mabel’s age, though 
smaller and slighter — motioned to the driver of a 
carriage to draw near. 

“I’m Lena Vance. Papa couldn’t come, and he 
sent me with the carriage to fetch you. Have you 
any baggage that you want Jim to look after?” 

In a few moments they were comfortably seated 
in the luxurious vehicle, and Lizzie had an oppor- 
tunity to scan the face opposite her — a small sallow 
face, young but strangely unchildlike, in which one 
could scarcely notice other features for those won- 
derful black eyes. 

“ Oh, I forgot !” said the little lady, suddenly. 
“ Papa said I was to make you very welcome, but 
I don’t know how, I’m sure. I think it’s hard to 
act very glad to see people that you don’t know 
one bit, don’t you?” 


171 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“ I think it is,” answered Lizzie, amused at this 
frank statement of the case. “ I presume I have 
met you before, but I think you must have grown 
since. I did not recognize you.” 

“ Maybe. I don’t grow much, though ; every- 
thing stops it. First it’s fevers, and then it’s 
rheumatism, and then it’s chills. It doesn’t make 
any difference which, but I don’t suppose I’ll ever 
grow very tall and strong. Mamma’s awful afraid 
I’ll be a pinched-up, dumpy young lady, but I 
don’t care much, because then, maybe, I could stay 
home and read books, and not have to go to all the 
tiresome parties with mamma. Do you like par- 
ties ?” 

“ I never attended many,” answered Lizzie. 

“ Don’t they have them in the country ? I wish 
I lived there ! I’ll tell you what they’re like — 
I’ve been in when mamma has them : Everybody 
is all dressed up, and they wear gloves so tight 
they can’t use their fingers, and they talk and laugh 
and go out to supper and eat things that make 
them sick the next day. Then they ask somebody 
to give them some music, and a gentleman leads a 
lady to the piano, and she thumps on it and sings 
something that you can’t tell a word of. The peo- 
ple talk and chatter all the time; and when she 
stops, they say ‘ How beautiful !’ That’s a party. 
Do you think it’s nice?” gravely demanded Miss 
Lena. 

Lizzie surveyed this strange specimen of child- 


BROTHER AND SISTER. 


175 


hood in some bewilderment, but an answer did not 
seem to be required, for the speaker repeated her 
own opinion with emphasis : 

“ I don’t. I like best to stay at home and read, 
but papa says I don’t go out enough.” 

“ Don’t you go to school ?” asked Lizzie. 

“ Sometimes; never very long, though. Those 
fevers and things stopped that too. But I didn’t 
like it very much. The girls always wanted to 
play games and tell each other secrets. I didn’t 
like them, but I suppose they didn’t like me, ei- 
ther. They called my father’s distillery a ‘drunk- 
ard-factory.’ Do you think it is?” 

Lizzie was in some embarrassment, but again she 
was saved the trouble of replying. 

“ I didn’t care much for that, though, only I 
wanted to know, and I asked mamma, but she said, 
between me and Old Portmanteau, she was nearly 
distracted. Mamma is always afraid of being dis- 
tracted,” commented Lena, placidly. “I like Old 
Portmanteau ; I always talk to him when he comes 
to our house — he’s so queer ! — and I read his 
books, too. Papa calls me his heiress sometimes, 
and I like papa pretty well, but do you know what 
I’ll do if I grow to be a woman and he gives me 
that distillery ? I’ll tear it down.” 

“ What will papa say to that ?” Lizzie could not 
refrain from asking, rather curiously. 

“Oh, I’ve told him so. He said ‘Pshaw!’ 
That was all.” 


176 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


Lizzie diverted the conversation to Old Port- 
manteau, as a safer topic, and asked when Lena 
had seen him. 

“ I saw him on the street not long ago. Some- 
times he comes to our house, but not very often. 
I don’t suppose he goes anywhere very often,” said 
Lena, reflectively. “ Papa does not like to see his 
books lying around ; he calls them 1 trash,’ and 
mamma says they make her nervous. Once, when 
I was out riding alone, I saw him on the street and 
asked hirn to ride with me wherever lie was going. 
I thought it would be nice to drive round leaving 
books — a great deal nicer than just going out for a 
ride — but he wouldn’t get in the carriage; and 
when I told about it at home, they said I must 
never ask him again. Isn’t it a pity that the 
pleasant things are almost always the ones you 
mustn’t do ?” 

Old Portmanteau driving about in George 
Vance’s elegant carriage distributing temperance 
tracts ! The faintest possible smile at the incon- 
gruity flitted over Lizzie’s lips. 

The black eyes gravely watching her detected it 
in an instant : 

“ I didn’t think it w r as a bit funny, but every 
one else seems to think it was, or ‘shocking f 
that’s what mamma said. We stop here; this is 
our house.” 

It was the new house, completed and richly fur- 
nished — a beautiful house, but scarcely a home, 


BROTHER AND SISTER, 


177 


Lizzie felt as she passed through the wide hall into 
the large library, more rich in upholstery than in 
books, where the mistress of the mansion received 
her. Mr. Vance she did not see until late in the 
evening ; and though he clasped her hand warmly, 
there was mutual constraint in their greeting. 

He referred hesitatingly to her mother’s death 
and expressed his regret and sympathy, but made 
no inquiries concerning Rick. He did not allude 
to Lizzie’s intended journey further than to answer 
her question regarding the time the train would 
leave. Indeed, it was one of the grievances of 
Mr. George Vance’s life that, as he phrased it, 
“ things that were dead and gone couldn’t stay 
buried.” 

“ I suppose it is because you are always trying 
to bury things before they are dead,” his wife had 
once half petulantly responded, speaking a far 
deeper truth than she herself perceived. 

Between these uncomfortable hauntings, Lena’s 
sharp, unchildlike speeches and his wife’s often 
fretful comments, Mr. Vance had lost something 
of the good-natured, self-satisfied air that he had 
once worn; neither did he view his prosperous 
business with the old complacency. He even found 
himself now and then pondering the feasibility of 
giving it up — a strange question for him to consider, 
however idly, when the profits of the trade were 
steadily increasing. But then it had its disagreea- 
ble points, especially since men were so unreason- 
12 


178 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


able as to hold whoever engaged in it responsible 
for other people’s doings. 

For his wife, Mr. Vance had married much as 
he had chosen his business — with a keener view to 
financial profit than any other; and in whatever 
else they differed, she agreed with him upon the 
important point of wanting money. It would not 
greatly have troubled Mrs. Vance that her hus- 
band’s business was not right if only the wrong 
need not have been forced upon her notice. It was 
not guilt as guilt, but only the being obliged to see 
it, that made her uneasy — “ nervous,” as she said. 
She viewed all things with reference to herself. It 
was not the fact that her husband really was stain- 
ing his soul that troubled her, but that such horrid 
happenings as that affair of Richard Chester must 
show the stain even to her obtuse vision. Lena’s 
freaks and the old itinerant’s visits had added to 
her discomfort and brought a sense of positive in- 
jury inflicted upon her by her husband. Of course 
she must have money, but she could not bear to be 
uncomfortable; and since George could not obtain 
money in his present occupation without making 
her so, why had .he ever chosen it? 

It was a relief to all that Lena had conceived a 
sudden fancy for Lizzie and talked to her so con- 
stantly during the evening that there was little ne- 
cessity for her parents exerting themselves. She 
brought out her favorite books and exhibited the 
pictures she liked and questioned Lizzie about the 


BROTHER AND SISTER. 


179 


country school, deciding that she would like to 
attend it much better than those in town. 

Mrs. Vance did not attempt to check her; it 
would probably have been a difficult task in any 
case, and in the present one she certainly felt more 
like encouraging her, for, as she remarked to her 
husband when the guest had been shown to her 
elegantly-appointed room, “ Miss Chester is a nice- 
enough person, but she reminds one so unpleasantly 
of funerals, prisons and that sort of thing that I 
really found the evening quite depressing.” 

One bright face and hearty greeting Lizzie met 
in that house the next morning when, in the hall, 
she came suddenly upon Phrony, broom in hand : 

“ Dear Miss Lizzie !” 

“My good kind Phrony ! You here?” 

“ Yes’m ; I comes and helps twice a week. My ! 
but I’m glad to see you !” 

Phrony had become quite a favorite there; some 
one to “do the cheerfuls ” was indeed needed in 
that house, though that was not the service for 
which she was nominally engaged. Mr. Vance 
had been so pleased with her that he had thought 
of employing still another member of her family, 
and once spoke to her about it — only once. 

“ Phrony,” he said, meeting her one day, “ what’s 
the name of that oldest brother of yours — that 
bright little shaver who sweeps offices ?” 

“Teddy, sir,” answered Phrony, with her quick 
bob. 


180 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“ Teddy ? Well, how would you like me to give 
Master Teddy some steady work ? I might find a 
place for him at my store.” 

“ If you please, sir, thank you, but I’d see him 
drowned first, and a half a dozen times over — that 
I would ! And Fm much obliged to you for it,” 
responded Phrony, incoherently, striving between 
her respect and her determination. 

“ Would — what?” questioned Mr. Vance, bewil- 
dered. 

“ It’s meanin’ no offence, sir, but I’d be bold to 
say no, sir, and not at all, and never, not if I works 
till I’m skin an’ bones, and all of us is skin an’ 
bones, an’ we’ve no house left to keep our skeling- 
tons in, neither, than Teddy shouldn’t go into no 
such business. I’m thankful for your kindness, 
sir — I be really ; but them’s my feelin’s,” explained 
Phrony, striving by the frequency and earnestness 
of her curtseys to atone for what she feared must 
seem the rudeness of her speech. “Not but what 
I’d like Teddy in steady work and we be poor, sir, 
but there’s some things as is poorer than poverty, 
and I couldn’t say no different, whatever comes of 
it, seeing I’ve been knowin’ to General Halroyd 
and Mr. Chester and Old Portmanteau, and what 
I’ve seen and heard besides. I couldn’t, noways.” 

Mr. Vance frowned for an instant, then turned 
away with a laugh not quite so careless as he wished 
it to sound. The linking together of those three 
names aroused unpleasant thoughts, and Phrony’s 


BROTHER AND SISTER. 


181 


homely words haunted him that day until he mut- 
tered angrily, “ Strange that I can’t offer a kindness 
without having such things flung into my face! It 
was just so with Chester; I never meant him any- 
thing but good. I’ll let boys alone after this;” and 
he said no more to Phrony, but she did not lose 
her place there, as she had half feared she would. 

Lizzie inquired for Mrs. Halroyd. She had 
hoped to call on her that morning while she was in 
town, but Mr. Vance thought Mrs. Halroyd had 
left the city. He had heard that she purposed 
doing so, and presumed she was gone. Mr. Vance 
knew of no one going in Lizzie’s direction, and 
could not provide her with company, as his father 
had wished ; but he assured her that she would 
meet with no difficulty in finding her way alone, 
and promised to request the conductor to afford 
her all necessary assistance. 

So the brief visit came to an end, to the relief of 
all concerned except poor little Lena, who insisted 
upon going with her father to the depot and seeing 
Lizzie safely in the cars. 

“ I like you,” she said at parting. “ I’d like to 
come to your school, and I mean to do it, too ; I’ll 
make them let me go on a long visit to grandpa.” 

As Lizzie seated herself and began to look about 
her a lady just opposite threw up her heavy veil, 
and a quick recognition followed : 

“ Miss Chester !” 

(t Mrs. Halroyd !” 


CHAPTER XII. 


BOLTS AND BARS. 


JijfRS. HALROYD changed her seat for one 
4 1 beside Lizzie and clasped the girl’s hand 
warmly, but the eyes of each filled with 
tears as the black robes of the other recall- 
ed the story of their bereavement. 

“ I have thought of you often since I saw you 
last,” Mrs. Halroyd said. “ I am glad that we are 
to journey together for a little while. Are you 
going to see your brother?” 

Quietly and easily she asked the question, as if 
such a visit w r ere most natural ; and indeed it seem- 
ed so to her. Ariel would have gone had the case 
been hers, and her tone and manner made it easy 
for Lizzie to speak frankly and simply of her pur- 
pose, as it was a relief to do. 

Before the train started some one passed hurried- 
ly through the car, scattering papers and pamphlets. 
The two ladies, already in earnest conversation, 
would not have noticed him but that a leaf fluttered 
down between them and revealed itself a temper- 
ance tract. Both turned almost involuntarily and 
182 


BOLTS AND BARS. 


183 


looked after the retreating distributor, recognizing 
at once the spare, bent form and the old black 
satchel. 

“ Old Portmanteau is still doing his work / 7 said 
Ariel, with a smile in which there mingled a ten- 
der sadness — a still sowing the seed i beside all 
waters . 7 He will never know here what harvest it 
brings. How many lives he must touch !” 

She was thinking of how he had touched her life, 
and of the sweet and bitter consequences that flow- 
ed from her earnest conviction, her persuasion and 
prayer. 

In a moment more the train was in motion, and 
as it moved slowly away from the depot the bowed 
head, with its fluttering gray hair, passed by the 
car window on the platform outside and vanished : 
Old Portmanteau was speeding elsewhere on his 
mission. 

Mrs. Halroyd’s stopping-place was but a few 
miles short of Lizzie’s destination, and so promised 
them a ride of several hours together and relieved 
the younger and more inexperienced traveler of all 
uneasiness. 

“ I felt a little nervous about going alone, and it 
is so pleasant to meet you , 77 she said. “ I scarcely 
know how it happened . 77 

“Pleasant for me too , 77 Mrs. Halrovd answered, 
cordially; “but I don’t suppose it did just ‘ hap- 
pen , 7 in the ordinary sense of that word, do you? 
I like to think that these helpful, pleasant things 


184 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


are all planned for us as well as life’s great ones — 
that the Father’s love is so watchful and tender 
that the unexpected occurrences are his thought for 
our comfort and happiness, his gift to gladden the 
days.” 

“ I never thought of it in that way, but it makes 
everything sweeter,” Lizzie answered. “Like the 
birthday-gifts we find on our table — more precious 
far for the thought that placed them there, the love 
that remembered the day, than for the gifts them- 
selves.” 

Mrs. Halroyd asked Lizzie of her new home 
and work — questions far removed from any thought 
or trace of patronage, not prompted by mere sym- 
pathy or kindness, either, but springing from 
genuine interest and appreciation. Their first re- 
lation of employer and employ^ had months before 
grown into a warmer feeling — a deep respect and 
regard that needed only longer intercourse to be- 
come close friendship. In wealth and station, in- 
deed, they were far apart, but that was of no mo- 
ment to Ariel Halroyd. 

The brief brightening vanished from Lizzie’s 
face when her companion left her, and as she 
traversed the last few miles of her journey the 
shadow of the prison began to gather over her. 
She had longed for that visit, yet keenly dreaded it, 
and it was with sinking heart and trembling limbs 
that she found herself at last beside the gloomy 
walls. She had apprised the chaplain of her com- 


BOLTS AND BARS. 


185 


ing, and he met her — a gray-haired gentleman with 
grave but kindly face, who won her confidence 
by his ready sympathy and the way in which he 
spoke of Rick. He had informed the warden 
of her coming, and she could see her brother at 
once, he said. 

He led the way, and she tried not to notice the 
ponderous bolts and bars, the memory of which 
might haunt her afterward, nor to scan too closely 
the prison-garb of some who passed her. They 
entered a large, not unpleasant apartment, and after 
a few courteous words from the warden she was 
conducted to a seat in a retired part of the room 
and her brother sent for. Everything was arrang- 
ed with a compassionate thought for her comfort 
and feelings, yet at best it could be but an inter- 
view, under surveillance, with a prisoner. 

Could it be Rick coming, in that dress and with 
the brown curls that had once been his boyish pride 
so closely shorn ? She wanted to close her eyes 
for a moment and shut out the sight, but she con- 
quered the impulse and arose, trying to greet him 
with a smile, but it was a trembling, tearful failure. 

Rick entered the room simply in obedience to 
orders, with a dull, indifferent air, not knowing 
or caring whom he was to meet. Lizzie had not 
written him of her coming, quite sure that his re- 
ply would be only a protest against her purpose, 
and she wished to spare herself that pain. Neither 
had the chaplain apprised him, and as he raised his 


186 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


eyes and recognized the slender black-robed figure 
a sudden change swept over his face, a storm of 
conflicting emotion — surprise, joy almost, for one 
instant, blotted out the next by a look of bitter 
anguish. 

“Lizzie !” with a quick breath that was almost a 
sob. “ Lizzie ! How could you ?” 

“ Oh, Rick, I did so want to see you !” 

He clasped her for one moment in a quick, close 
embrace, then dropped his arms and drew back 
with the old hopeless tone : 

“ This is no place for you ; you should not have 
come.” 

“Are you sorry to see me, Rick?” 

“ Here,” he answered, softening again under the 
tearful questioning of her eyes. “ Will you never un- 
derstand that it is all I can do now ? The sole atone- 
ment I can make for the misery and disgrace I have 
brought to you is not to darken your life any further, 
and you will not give me even that comfort.” 

“ It would be no comfort to you or to us, and it 
is impossible. Oh, Rick, it is not all that you can 
do. You can brighten and gladden our lives yet 
— Mabel’s and mine — and add joy even to the joy 
of heaven,” Lizzie pleaded. 

He shook his head gloomily, almost impatiently : 

“Don’t, Lizzie! The chaplain talks to me in 
that style sometimes. It is strange that any one 
can do it — that you cannot all know what a 
mockery it is. If you could see the past but for 


BOLTS AND BARS. 


187 


one single minute as I see it, you would never talk 
to me of hope again. Hope! For the blackened, 
ruined fragment of a life that is left me ?” 

At the farther end of jtbe room the chaplain 
stood, the warden was busy there over some papers, 
and a few other persons came and went. Lizzie 
watched them drearily in the brief silence that fol- 
lowed. Was this the interview to which she had 
looked forward so long, for which she had journey- 
ed so far? Something more impenetrable than any 
prison-walls shut her brother away from her still, 
and she could not reach him. She crushed back 
her tears and made another effort : 

“ I wanted to see you, Rick, and to tell you of 
mother — of that last night — ” 

“ Don’t, Lizzie !” he interposed again, huskily, 
his face quivering with pain. “ You wrote it all; 
don’t tell me any more : it is torture. I try to 
keep from thinking of it. They consider me a 
very tractable and willing convict ” — a harsh, fierce 
emphasis on the last word — “ because I am always 
ready for work. They do not know that the only 
relief I find is in work so hard or difficult that it 
gives me no chance for thought through the day 
and leaves me too tired to think at night.” 

“ Oh, my poor Rick ! What can I do, what can 
I sav, to comfort you ?” cried Lizzie, her loving 
heart crushed by the weight of his despair and her 
own helplessness. 

“ Nothing ! There is no voice in all the world 


188 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


that can speak any word of comfort to me,” he an 
swered. 

“But in heaven there is, and it speaks to earth. 
Oh, Rick, if you would but hear it ! ‘ Though your 
sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow ; 
though they be red like crimson, they shall be as 
wool/ — ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all 
acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world 
to save sinners / 99 

If the words bore any meaning for him, he did 
not show it then. He did not answer them, but 
after a moment looked at her again pityingly : 

“ Poor Lizzie ! You are always suffering for my 
sake when you are with me, and it always must be 
so. I can only drag you into my darkness ; that is 
why you must let me go.” 

Unsatisfactorily as it had begun, the short inter- 
view ended, and Lizzie went away. She had thought, 
if her presence could bring any hope or comfort, to 
remain several days in the city and see Rick as 
frequently as it could be allowed. But now, weary 
and desponding, she decided only to stay over-night, 
and see him once more in the morning. The 
chaplain’s wife, a tender, motherly woman, who 
spoke of all the prisoners as “our poor people,” 
insisted upon her becoming her guest : 

“ Come home with us, my dear. I’m sure it 
will be pleasanter for you than staying alone at a 
hotel. Such forlorn places they always seem to 
me! And I shall be glad to have you.” 


BOLTS AND BANS. 


189 


Far better for the lonely, dispirited girl it cer- 
tainly was, and their thoughtful kindness and com- 
panionship soothed her. They could tell her some- 
thing of Kick, too — that his conduct had won 
friends and favor and he was allowed many privi- 
leges. The physician had taken a fancy to him and 
claimed his assistance frequently in the hospital ; 
and however gloomy and morose in his moods, he 
was both careful and kind in his attendance upon 
the sick and faithful in every duty required of him. 

“ Yes,” Lizzie answered, sadly, “ he may have 
some natural fitness for such hospital duty. It was 
the great desire of his life once to study for a phy- 
sician. Oh, if he could have done it !” she cried, 
with a swift thought of all that might have been — 
of a path widely diverging from the present one, 
along which his feet and hers might have been 
treading happily. 

“ That may be yet, mj T dear ; your brother is 
young,” said the kindly matron. 

Lizzie shook her head sorrowfully : 

“ He is here, and that seems to end youth, oppor- 
tunity and everything. It never will be now.” 

“ You do not know that. Nothing is impossi- 
ble with God,” urged the elder ladv, and added 
thoughtfully, “It is a comfort to know that though 
our mistakes and sins are none the less mistakes 
and sins, yet God does sometimes make even these 
the means of teaching us, of working good to us 
and in us. You must never lose faith.” 


190 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


Those last words had been her mother’s. An- 
other voice than this stranger’s seemed uttering 
them, and recalled at once that last evening and 
the calm confidence with which her mother had 
spoken of Rick ; it recalled her own promise, too, 
and revived her fainting hope. “ If two of you 
shall agree.” Death had not broken that covenant. 
They were still agreed, though one was in heaven 
and one upon earth, and God’s promise would 
surely stand. Heaven and earth might pass away, 
but his word never. 

So the drooping head was raised again, and she 
was able to respond with something like cheerful- 
ness to the efforts of these new friends to interest 
her. She had gained courage also to meet Rick 
the next morning ; and though she expected less 
from the interview than she had on the previous 
day, she was calmer and stronger. Rick had made 
no inquiries concerning the length of her stay in 
the city; but when she told him that she intended 
departing at once for home, he answered, 

“ It is better to do so — the best thing you can 
do.” Then, watching her changing face, he added, 
regretfully, “ Poor Lizzie ! It has been miserable 
payment for your journey and all your trouble. 
I would be something different for your sake if I 
could. I wonder they ever let you come.” 

“ They ?” She repeated the word uncompre- 
hendingly. “ Whom ?” 

“ Aunt and un — Mr. and Mrs. Vance. I pre- 


BOLTS AND BARS. 


191 


same they would not wish me to claim any rela- 
tionship now. I wonder they consented to your 
coming. Did. they?” 

“ Not very willingly,” Lizzie answered, reluc- 
tantly but truthfully. 

“ I suppose not. They’re proud of you, but 
they couldn’t bear any connection with the poor 
miserable wretches of the earth — good, respectable 
people like them, who were never tempted, and so 
think they are sinless.” 

There was a sneering hardness in Rick’s tone, 
for with all his deep self-upbraiding he was bitter 
also toward all the world . besides. In a moment, 
however, he added gloomily, "Well, they’re right 
enough. It would have been far better for you 
to stay away. They paid your traveling-expenses, 
however ?” 

Why did he think of that? she wondered. Again 
she answered unwillingly : 

“ No. I’ve been teaching school, you know.” 

“And you used your money for this? — money 
that you have earned for yourself, while I, who 
ought to be providing for you, am here — ” 

But she interrupted the burst of self-reproach, 
and answered only the first part of the sentence, 
quickly and as lightly as she could : 

“ Not all of it — oh no ! I’m the richer by some 
books that I’ve been wanting; and, Rick, here are 
two or three for you. I thought perhaps you’d 
care for them.” 


192 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


They were medical works suggested by his friend, 
the prison-surgeon, whom the chaplain had consult- 
ed. Rick had some natural taste for such subjects, 
he said ; there were occasional hours that he would 
be allowed to devote to them, and at such times 
something that required deep study would be far 
more welcome than any lighter books that called 
for only a reading. Rick’s face did brighten a lit- 
tle as he opened them : 

“ It’s good of you, Lizzie — far too good ; but 
since you would do it, I’m glad it’s something of 
this sort, deep, hard study, that I’ll have to bury 
myself in and forget other things.” 

Pie looked at them as if they promised some re- 
lief for hours that had been intolerable, and the 
glance and words together brought the hot tears to 
Lizzie’s eyes ; but she held them back, for any 
token of her grief only deepened his despairing 
pain. She tried to draw away his thoughts from 
himself, to awaken old interests and brighten this 
last interview by speaking of persons whom he had 
known and of changes that had taken place. But 
it was a dreary recounting of intelligence for which 
he did not care, and he said so at last : 

“I never think of them, Lizzie; why should I? 
I’m worse than dead to them all. They wouldn’t 
even speak to me if I met them now, and I wouldn’t 
want them to, either. There isn’t one of the peo- 
ple I ever knew there that I’d care to hear of again, 
unless — Well, except General Halroyd, perhaps.” 


BOLTS AND BARS. 


193 


He spoke even that name hesitatingly, but Liz- 
zie caught it. He had not heard of the general's 
death, and she told him, as nearly as she knew, the 
circumstances. He listened, but made no comment 
until she ended, and then he only said, 

“ Such a life as his to go out in that way, while 
so many worse than worthless ones are left ! Such 
a world as this is ! He’s well out of it.” 

The short hour had passed, and the chaplain re- 
luctantly notified Lizzie. She arose to go, all the 
longing love and pity that she could not, dared not 
even try to, put into words looking from her eyes. 

Something of it Rick read, and answered : 

“ It’s of no use, Lizzie. You would help me if 
any one could, but it cannot be. Ho not try 
again.” 

And with nothing to prove that her journey 
had not been fruitless, she departed. It was little 
wonder that Mrs. Vance, noting the weary air with 
which she arrived at home, should favor her husband 
with a significant glance and a murmured aside : 

“ I told you how it would be. Talk of such a 
fellow committing one murder ! It’s more likely 
to be half a dozen before it’s through with.” 

She made brief mention of Rick, only inquiring 
if he were well because she could scarcely avoid 
doing so; and ignoring almost entirely the real 
object of Lizzie’s trip, she asked many questions 
about “ George’s folks,” their surroundings and 
doings. 

13 


194 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


The children, unfortunately, did not share either 
her prejudice or consideration. They had learned 
from conversations during her absence where Lizzie 
was going and were full of curiosity, and the pent- 
up questions soon burst forth : 

“ Did she really go inside the prison ?” — “ What 
did it look like?” — “ Were the walls awful thick?” 
— “ Did all the prisoners wear big chains, so they 
couldn’t get away ? and would the jailer shoot ’em 
if they tried ?” Then Sis piped, forth a final 
query : “ Did Cousin Rick be ’way down in a 
gungeon ?” 

But there the mother overheard, and interposed 
with some sharpness to cover her confusion : 

u Children, children ! Don’t tease Lizzie so ! 
Do you think she never can go anywhere without 
telling you a long story about it afterward? Run 
away at once, and let her rest.” 

They obeyed, but it touched the sister’s heart 
with a painful sense of loneliness that in this, her 
home, there was manifested no other interest in her 
poor Rick than that of mere curiosity — no loving 
or pitying thought, no prayer or hope for him. 
Yet it but deepened her own devotion. He should 
never be friendless while she lived. 

She spoke of him only to Mabel, who afterward 
confided the account to Joe, who longed to know 
some of the particulars of the visit, but could not 
ask Lizzie, 


CHAPTER XIII. 


AT LIZZIE'S SCHOOL. 

PRING deepened into summer, and the old 
school-house looked more cheerful when the 
great trees around it were waving green, 
leafy branches and throwing a pleasant 
shade around the little nook, veiling with 
its verdure some of its roughness, while within the 
air was made fragrant and the room brightened 
with the flowers that were brought daily as an 
offering to the teacher. Wild flowers some of them, 
garden favorites others, but welcome all of them, 
and placed here and there wherever a niche could 
be found to hold them. 

Some other adornments Lizzie had added to the 
apartment. She had won the trustees into bestow- 
ing upon it a fresh coating of whitewash, and then 
upon the plain walls she had hung a few simple 
pictures and mottoes. From her own home most 
of them were, and it had cost some sacrifice of feel- 
ing to place them there, familiar as they were and 
dear to her because of their many associations, sad 
and sweet. But she had been repaid by the delight 



196 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


of the children and the increased cheerfulness of 
the room. 

Her life had grown less secluded than it had 
been at first. Through her pupils she had formed 
acquaintances in various country homes, and visited 
them occasionally to partake of the parents’ hospi- 
tality and discuss school-progress. Yet with all 
her interest in her work it was somewhat monot- 
onous, and grew wearisome sometimes. Unusually 
so it seemed one long, warm afternoon when the 
trees rustled dreamily and the faint twittering of 
birds and drowsy hum of bees stole in through the 
open windows. The children’s eyes wandered rest- 
lessly from their books to the far-off blue sky, and 
then back to the school-clock to see when the hour 
of freedom would come. One or two little sleepy 
heads had dropped upon the desks before them, and 
others were turning and moving uneasily in search 
of something more interesting than legitimate oc- 
cupations. No one felt any energy for study ; the 
summer languor was upon them all, and recitations 
dragged heavily. 

In vain Lizzie tried to awaken them to some- 
thing like ordinary promptness and enthusiasm. 
The figures upon the blackboard seemed to them 
but intricate puzzles that day ; they made no effort 
at computation : they only “ guessed ” feebly and 
“gave it up.” 

Spelling was astounding in its combination of 
letters, and the reading dropped into a sort of 


AT LIZZIE'S SCHOOL . 


197 


droning chant very trying to the nerves of the 
teacher. 

At last the clock rang out four with a sharp, de- 
cisive sound, as if it said, “ Now let us have an end 
of all this for to-day ;” and Lizzie echoed the sen- 
timent with a sigh of relief. She was very weary 
as she closed the door upon the empty building and 
walked slowly down to the road. A carriage was 
advancing, but she scarcely noticed it until it sud- 
denly stopped and some one called her name : 

“ Miss Chester ! Oh, I am so glad !” said the 
sweet, eager voice ; and Mrs. Halroyd leaned for- 
ward with extended hand of greeting. “I knew 
that you were in this part of the country, but I did 
not know that you were so near us. We shall be 
good neighbors,” she said. “ Come and ride with 
me for a little while; you look tired, and it will 
rest you.” 

Lizzie accepted gladly, sending word home by 
the children, who were loitering slowly along the 
road, awaiting her coming. 

“ Neighbors ?” she repeated, wonderingly, recall- 
ing the word after the first moment of pleased 
surprise. “ Surely you have not removed to the 
country?” 

“ For the summer,” Mrs. Halroyd answered. 
“ My little Harold does not seem quite as strong as 
usual this season, and the physician recommended 
country air. He said, ‘ Not springs or seaside, nor 
fancy ruralizing among a crowd, but just plain 


198 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


country, where he can find air and out-door exercise 
enough ’ — a prescription that suited me exactly ; 
and so we came here. This can scarcely be called 
‘ plain country/ though, it is so beautiful with its 
hills and river. We have found shelter in a wide, 
old-fashioned farmhouse on the hill, where there is 
an abundance of room within and veranda with- 
out.” 

Lizzie laughingly recognized the place by its 
description. She had often noticed it in passing. 

“ But you must come with us and see how pleas- 
ant a place it is upon a nearer view — particularly 
you must see who came with us ; mustn’t she, 
Harry ? Somebody to help us in all our doings, 
but especially to 1 do the cheerfuls.’ ” 

“ Phrony ?” questioned Lizzie, quickly. “ Has 
she really come to stay with you?” 

“ For this summer — yes. She is just the bright, 
useful, sensible little body that I wanted, but it 
required some coaxing and not a little planning 
and arranging of her various avocations before she 
would consent. She is to go home every alternate 
Saturday and remain over Sunday, for she says 1 a 
family takes a deal of lookin’ after.’ ” 

“ I suspect hers does,” said Lizzie. “ I shall be 
very glad to see her again.” 

“ And I am very glad to have found you,” re- 
peated Mrs. Halroyd in a tone of entire satis- 
faction. “It seemed just a little lonely here with 
only strangers about us, but it will be very pleas- 


AT LIZZIE'S SCHOOL. 


199 


ant now, and we must see a great deal of each 
other.” 

Very pleasant it was to Lizzie that evening in 
the bright rooms, with Phrony’s eager welcome and 
Mrs. Halroyd unmistakable pleasure. The time 
passed swiftly among books and pictures, and after 
tea Mrs. Halroyd played and sang, while Lizzie 
leaned back in her easy-chair, resting in body and 
mind. 

“ Since you are taking care of all the children 
around here, I think I must make it my mission to 
take care of the ‘ school-ma’am/ ” Mrs. Halroyd 
said, turning away from the piano at last and com- 
ing to Lizzie’s side. 

“I believe I need it — such care as you have 
given to-night,” Lizzie answered, gratefully. “ It 
has rested me so.” 

“ You will come often? and we shall be friends, 
shall we not?” 

“ Surely,” Lizzie answered ; and Mrs. Halroyd 
stooped and kissed her forehead — a kiss that 
brought the quick tears to Lizzie’s eyes and seal- 
ed the compact. 

There was a delightful homeward drive through 
the moonlight, and Lizzie entered the farmhouse 
with a lighter step and brighter face than she had 
known for months. 

From that evening a new life began for her — an 
intercourse that gladdened all the summer days 
and grew into a strong, deep friendship. Mrs. 


200 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


Halroyd’s carriage was often waiting at the door 
when school closed in the afternoon. She claimed 
Lizzie for the holidays, and in return made frequent 
visits to the farm, where she soon became a favorite. 
She dropped easily into their quiet country life and 
ways, enjoying it all, and the children introduced 
little Harold to a variety of new pursuits and 
amusements, in the following of which his clothing 
suffered and his face grew sunburned, but he gained 
health and strength. 

There were pleasant rides at morning and even- 
ing, frequent excursions to the hills and long, 
bright days in the wood, when Mrs. Halroyd and 
Lizzie gathered mosses and flowers until they were 
weary, and rested under the trees with books or 
sewing while the children rambled about at will, 
helping or hindering Phrony, who arranged the 
tempting picnic-dinners. 

In these excursions Joe was a valuable auxiliary. 
Not that he could join them or bestow much time 
upon them, but he knew all the country for miles 
around, and suggested now some wild rock, now 
some tiny romantic glen or spring, as worth visit- 
ing. His wagon, bound on errands to mill or 
town, often bore the party far on their way ; and 
Mr. Vance was always ready with the promise, 
“Joe shall meet you with the team in the even- 
ing” 

Joe was always ready to fulfill such a promise, 
even after a hard day’s work. He liked to find 


AT LIZZIE'S SCHOOL. 


201 


his favorite nooks appreciated, that the rocks and 
woodland streams that had seemed so attractive to 
him were charming to more cultivated taste also. 
His quick, ingenious brain was nearly always suc- 
cessful in devising plans by which the ladies might 
obtain the views they wished. “Ask Joe” grew 
to be more and more a household phrase. 

“ Don’t you wish you could go along with ns, 
Joe?” Teddy asked one pleasant Saturday morn- 
ing when Joe stopped his wagon that they might 
alight before he turned in another direction on 
business for Mr. Vance. 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” answered Joe, apparently 
considering the matter for the first time. “I 
hadn’t thought of it. You see, I get so much good 
of most things round the edges that I hardly ever 
think about not being in the middle.” 

“ It seems to me,” said Mrs. Halroyd, looking 
after him as he drove cheerily away, “that his 
whole work also is too much ‘ round the edges,’ as 
he says. Joe has certainly skill, energy and intel- 
lect enough to fit him for the ‘ middle ’ of some- 
thing useful, and he ought to be preparing for it. 
Do you know anything of his plans, Lizzie?” 

“ No,” answered Lizzie, thoughtfully. “ He is 
studying and improving, but I do not think he has 
any definite plans for his future, except, as he says, 
‘ making the best sort of a Joe Kenyon that can be 
made out of the stuff.’ ” 

“ The material is good,” said Mrs. Halroyd, 


202 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


laughing; “ and if I can help him to makegood 
use of it in any way, I will do it gladly.” 

The conversation recurred to Lizzie afterward 
in one of Joe’s evening lessons, and she suddenly 
asked, 

“Joe, do you mean to be a farmer?” 

“No,” answered Joe, slowly; “I don’t believe 
I do. I haven’t any land, to be sure, nor much 
prospect of any, but I don’t think it’s what I want, 
any way.” 

“ What then ?” questioned Lizzie, playfully. 
“Minister? Lawyer? Doctor?” 

Joe shook his head : 

“Too much college about all of them : I couldn’t 
do it ; and besides, I don’t believe all the colleges 
in the world would make me into a very good 
specimen of either of them. Seems as if it wouldn’t 
be like me. Don’t you suppose we are made for 
something particular — I mean some work that we 
can do best — and we ought to try to get into that 
if we can ?” 

“ Oh yes. We are not all alike, and our peculiar 
dispositions, tastes and talents were not given us for 
nothing; they have a great deal to do with deciding 
the life we are fitted for. But what is it that you 
would like, Joe — that you think you can do best?” 

“ That’s just what I can’t tell,” said Joe, with a 
look of perplexity. “ It puzzles me. Most folks 
would think it must be farming, because I’ve been 
here on the farm so long and know more about that 


AT LIZZIE'S SCHOOL. 


203 


kind of work than anything else almost. But, 
you see, it isn’t the ploughing and planting and 
crops that I care most about, after all, or have most 
to do with. I help with all that, of course, but 
what I go ahead with alone and sort of take to 
naturally is laying out plats and beds, building 
stone walls and fences, digging ditches, and such 
things — anything to plan out and build; and then 
I like to go through the country, too, and notice 
differences. I can’t tell you,” concluded Joe, 
doubtfully. “I don’t know what that kind of 
liking would make of me, for it wouldn’t be much 
of a trade to go wandering round the country 
mending folks’ barns and fences.” 

That certainly did not seem very promising. 
Lizzie did not know what to suggest, and after a 
moment Joe added, 

“ I suppose the only way is to hold on where I 
am and do my best here till there’s an opening into 
something I can do that seems meant for me.” 

Lizzie was growing stronger, braver, more hope- 
ful, now that her busy days were set in such a 
golden frame of friendship and enjoyment as Mrs. 
Halroyd’s coming had brought to her. At first she 
had almost doubted if such pleasant hours of ram- 
ble and reveling amid books and pictures could be 
quite in accord with a life so wholly useful as she 
meant hers to be, but she found the healthful re- 
action gave her strength and buoyancy for her 
work. And she was profiting in other ways also. 


204 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


Mrs. Halroyd gave her lessons in music and they 
began a course of reading together, and most of all 
it was Ariel’s self — the sweet, strong, noble Chris- 
tian character — that helped the young girl, who 
learned to look upon her friend as a dear elder sis- 
ter. 

One Friday afternoon Lizzie sat at her desk in 
the school-room, presiding over a very curious 
medley of literary exercises which the performers 
gravely classified as “ speeches and compositions.” 
A little girl had read a peculiar document on 
“ Birds,” concluding with the statement that 
canaries sang the sweetest, but she liked kittens 
best “ because they can’t fly away and you can hold 
them in your lap and purr.” Then a small maiden 
with a freckled face and a talent for moralizing 
hastily swallowed the last bit of green apple she 
had been surreptitiously munching, and read a 
paper to the effect that “ Perseverance is a blessing. 
Perseverance is what everybody ought to have, but 
some don’t.” Kip followed, and with his fingers 
clasping and unclasping nervously behind him, and 
his eyes fixed upon the ceiling, intoned a few lines 
in which he rather doubtfully admitted the possi- 
bility of his chancing 

“ To fall below 
Demosthenes or Cicero.” 

Perhaps the children did not appreciate oratory, 
for they seemed delighted when a knock at the door 


AT LIZZIE’S SCHOOL. 


205 


suddenly interrupted the exercises. Kip sped has- 
tily to his seat, and every small head turned curi- 
ously as their teacher answered the summons. 

A traveler stood there, tired, dusty, bent and 
gray, whom Lizzie recognized at once; but he 
showed no recollection of having ever seen her be- 
fore as, wearily dropping the old portmanteau at 
his feet, he asked, 

“ Will you be kind enough to give me a glass of 
water ?” 

“ With pleasure,” Lizzie answered, a swift flash 
of association lending to the readiness of her tone 
a touch of some deeper feeling. “ The children 
shall bring you some fresh from the spring. Will 
you come in and wait a moment while I send them 
for it ?” 

He accepted the offered chair as if rest and the 
coolness of the room were grateful, while Lizzie 
despatched to the spring two boys, who in their 
curiosity concerning the stranger returned much 
sooner than they would ordinarily have found it 
possible to do. The eyes of the old itinerant wan- 
dered with a seemingly absent glance over the ea- 
ger, childish faces, but he noticed them, for as he 
took the glass of water Lizzie brought to him he 
said, as if in apology for his intrusion, 

“ The road was so warm and dusty. I was very 
thirsty, and there was no other house near.” 

“ You are very welcome here,” she replied, quick- 
ly, “ though we have but slight refreshment to 


206 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


offer. You, who are working to benefit us all, 
should surely be welcome anywhere.” 

“Yot slight refreshment,” he said, with slow 
emphasis. “ Even a cup of cold water that the 
Master will think worth remembering when worlds 
have passed away and account as offered to himself 
is not a little thing.” Then, seeming to recall her 
last remark, he added, “ You know my work, then ? 
But they are few who value it, and even those who 
wish well to the work seldom think of the worker. 
I am content to be only a voice sounding here and 
there, willing to be forgotten if only the words are 
remembered.” 

The last sentence was spoken to himself, as if 
he had lapsed into forgetfulness of any hearer, but 
its patient humility and suggestion of loneliness 
brought a sudden moisture to Lizzie’s eyes as she 
looked at the bowed form and worn face. 

“ Stay here and rest until the sun is lower,” she 
urged, kindly ; and then, with a hope of possible 
cheer to him, she asked the children to sing. 

Simple the music was, and the voices untrained, 
but they were children’s voices, glad and clear, and 
they sang heartily the few songs and hymns they 
were accustomed to sing together. The old man 
listened quietly, but with such evident enjoyment 
that another thought occurred to Lizzie ; and when 
the limited concert programme was exhausted, she 
asked him if he would like to talk to the school. 
He had but the one theme, she knew, and his eyes 


AT LIZZIE’S SCHOOL. 


207 


brightened and his weariness was forgotten as he 
eagerly assented. 

“We’d like to hear about giants pretty well,” 
was suggested, in a loud whisper, by Teddy, who 
also remembered the visitor. 

Lizzie’s glance of reproof was mingled with sur- 
prise ; she did not understand the remark, nor did 
the speaker recall the incident that had prompted 
it. But he did not even think it strange ; he only 
caught at the word as he had done once before, and 
began to tell of the monster evil Intemperance and 
the crime and woe it wrought, and of how the 
children must abhor it and band together to fight 
against it. 

In his own peculiar way he spoke, now figura- 
tively, almost wildly, as if he had forgotten his 
listeners and the vice were some incarnate fiend 
present before him; then again with simple, 
straightforward earnestness, as anxious to make 
even the youngest understand. Through it all 
they listened with eager faces and wondering eyes, 
held by his impassioned fervor when they did not 
fully comprehend, but gleaning more of his mean- 
ing even then than might have been supposed. 
When he had ended and the school was dismissed, 
they crowded around him while, opening his port- 
manteau, he distributed some of his smaller books. 

When the last lingering group hkd slowly dis- 
persed and only her home-band remained, Lizzie 
asked him to accompany them to the farm for the 


208 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


night, but he declined. It had grown cooler, he said, 
and he had been resting ; he had three hours of 
daylight yet, and must travel farther. Then he 
looked in Lizzie’s face with a sort of wistful 
questioning : 

“ You are very kind. It seems as if I had seen 
you before, but I cannot tell. I have passed this 
way ; I do not know that I ever stopped here.” 

“ No ; you saw me iu L .” 

“ In the city ? Ah ! I go about so much, and 
many things I cannot remember well.” He drew 
his hand across his forehead as if to brush away some 
perplexing clouds. 

But Lizzie could not remind him of the sad story 
that alone would recall her to his recollection. She 
simply said, 

“ Phrony was with us sometimes when we were 
in town. She is here in the country this summer.” 

“ Phrony ?” He repeated that name wondering- 
ly at first, as if it were a familiar but unmeaning 
sound. “Phrony? Oh! They call the girl so, I 
think — the bright little maid. I missed her com- 
ing and going, but I had forgotten. And she is in 
the country now? Well, she will be helpful 
wherever she may be.” He turned to go, but 
paused at the door. “It may be the child will 
have opportunity to scatter some seed of truth along 
her new path. She is willing and fearless. Will 
you give her these and ask her to do what she 
can ?” 


AT LIZZIE’S SCHOOL. 


209 


He placed a package of tracts in Lizzie’s hand, 
turned again and was gone, passing up the road 
with rapid steps, as if to atone for his brief paus- 
ing by the way. 

Lizzie watched him for a moment, standing on 
the steps until the children called to her, and then 
walked slowly homeward, pondering some ques- 
tions his words had awakened. She was thinking 
of them still when Mrs. Halroyd called for her an 
hour later, proposing a ride. The evening air had 
grown cool and pleasant, and the drive along the 
river-bank was beautiful, but Lizzie enjoyed it 
only absently, and sat so silently thoughtful that 
her friend, watching her shadowed face, at last said 
questioningly, 

“ ‘ Where hast been toiling all day, sweetheart, 

That thy brow is burdened and sad ? 

The Master’s work may make weary feet, 

But it leaves the spirit glad.’” 

“ Ah ! but I was thinking — fearing — that I had 
neglected some of the Master’s work,” Lizzie an- 
swered, and told of her afternoon visitor, his earn- 
est words to the children and his message for 
Phrony. “I am not so foolish as to think I must 
undertake every good work, but I have never tried 
particularly to teach or influence the children upon 
this subject, though I have many opportunities, I 
suppose, if I knew just how to use them and what 
to do. There is very little said or thought about it 

14 


210 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


here, and yet there is great danger for many of these, 
who will soon go away from the country life to that 
of the city. I have deep cause to know what suf- 
fering and ruin it may bring, and I ought to help 
others to escape it if I can,” she concluded in a 
lower tone. 

“That is true of us both,” Mrs. Halroyd an- 
swered, thoughtfully. “ No ; we cannot undertake 
all good works. The talents and the workers are 
many, but that which seems in any wise entrusted 
to our hands we must not neglect. We will think 
of this.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


CHANGE OF PROGRAMME. 

NOTHER crop !” Joe said when Lizzie 
told him some of the thoughts their visitor 
had awakened and of a half-formed plan. 

“Of what?” she asked, wondering at 
the apparently irrelevant reply from the 
usually straightforward, practical Joe. 

“ Oh, doings and changings. You see, the old 
man always talks about his sowing the seed ; and 
since he was here the first time and Eve known 
about his traveling around, Eve sort of watched 
for it to come up. IPs queer, isn’t it, how words 
and books and people change us and make us see 
things in different ways, without our hardly know- 
ing it or their ever knowing they’ve done it?” 

The thinking resulted first in Lizzie’s interest- 
ing the children in some stories upon the subject, 
and then in giving up every alternate Friday after- 
noon to exercises connected with that particular top- 
ic. The essays, reading and recitations were all to 
be of temperance. Next a school total abstinence 
society was formed, a pledge carefully drawn up, 



212 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


explained, and then signed. Mrs. Halroyd made 
bright badges for all the members, and presented 
the society with a beautiful banner of blue and 
gold that was a very marvel in the children’s eyes. 
She came frequently to the school on Friday after- 
noons, too, and assisted Lizzie in teaching them a 
number of what Teddy called “ clear-cold-water 
and don’t-touch songs.” 

Afterward she proposed a picnic. 

“ There are so many pleasant places in the wood 
here, and Phrony and I will help you, Lizzie,” she 
said. “We must take them out with banner and 
badges in full array, and provide for a thoroughly 
pleasant time. Such a day will fix the whole sub- 
ject more firmly in their memory, if it does nothing 
more.” 

Mr. Vance readily lent his countenance to this 
scheme. Not that he felt any special interest in the 
little society, but he had a great respect for Mrs. 
Halroyd and he was both fond and proud of Lizzie ; 
anything that would help to make her school pop- 
ular or add to its effectiveness was sure of his ap- 
proval : 

“ Joe can go with you a day or two before and 
pick out the place. He’ll be sure to know just the 
right spot, if anybody does. And when you have 
the spree, he can take the wagon and carry baskets 
and such things, and stay a while to put up swings 
if you like,” he observed. 

“ Oh, uncle, we shall want Joe all day. He can 


CHANGE OF PROGRAMME. 


213 


help us so much,” interposed Lizzie, who, besides 
her real wish for his assistance, was determined that 
Joe should not know this bit of pleasuring only 
“ round the edges.” 

“Whew! These schoolmarms are expensive 
articles to have in a family/’ responded Uncle 
Vance, good-naturedly. “Well, I suppose I can 
spare him.” 

The plan was successfully carried out. Joe se- 
lected a charming place, the day was pleasant, the 
children in a high state of enjoyment, and Phrony, 
who accompanied the party, was in her element 
among so much cheerfulness. But when the din- 
ner was over and the little ones busy with games, 
Mrs. Halrovd sat thoughtfully watching them ; and 
when Lizzie stole away from one of the merry 
groups and joined her under the shady tree, she 
said, 

“ I was wishing we could reach some of the 
young people in the neighborhood, Lizzie — those 
who are older than these children — and interest 
them in this question of temperance. How can 
we do it? I did not know until w r e began with 
your school that there was so little said or thought 
of it here.” 

“ I have a few older pupils in the winter term — 
not many,” Lizzie answered. “ I do not see how we 
can reach any others except through the children, 
and that .is very indirectly.” 

“ There ought to be a way,” Mrs. Halroyd said. 


214 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


— “ Joe,” as he passed near them, “ there are no tem- 
perance societies in this vicinity?” 

“Except this little one? No’m ; I’ve never 
heard of any — that is, not exactly.” Joe added the 
last clause rather hesitatingly, with a sudden re- 
membrance of the very select one that had been 
established behind the woodpile nearly two years 
before. 

“ I wish we could persuade the young people 
here to form one, or in some way to think more of 
this subject than they do. If we only knew how 
to interest them in it!” 

“ Young folks about my age, you mean ? Yes, 
there are quite a number of them round here. 
They don’t drink now, but I suppose they’ve never 
thought much about the harm of it or made up 
their minds never to touch it,” said Joe, reflectively. 
“It would be a good thing if they would. They 
mostly turn out to singing-schools and such things. 

I suppose a lecture or something in the school-house 
of an evening would bring them together, if that 
would do any good.” 

“ That’s a suggestion worth considering. — I think 
we could manage that, Lizzie,” Mrs. Halroyd said. 

“ Suppose we do have a lecture on temperance some 
evening soon ?” 

“ If we can get the house and the speaker,” Liz- ' 
zie responded, not very confidently. 

The speaker Mrs. Halroyd soon decided upon— 
a minister in a small town but a few miles distant. 


CHANGE OF PROGRAMME. 


215 


“ He is a ready and interesting talker, and has 
studied this subject considerably, I know. Moroever, 
he is always willing to do what he can, and I think 
he will consent to spare us an evening, especially 
when he finds that no elaborate preparation will be 
required,” she said. “ I will write and see whether 
he can come, and when.” 

The reply was satisfactory. Mr. Karr could give 
them either Tuesday or Friday evening of the 
ensuing week. If they would drop him a note on 
the morning of the day decided upon, he would 
take the evening train and be with them in time 
for the meeting. The next thing was to secure the 
building, and that required the consent of the trus- 
tees. Mr. Vance was first consulted. 

u Temperance meeting ? Dear me ! what a stir- 
ring up! You young folks think you can reform 
all creation if you only have meetings enough. I 
suppose it’ll be for a women’s rights convention 
you’ll want it next,” laughed the farmer. “ Well, 
well ! I don’t expect any good’ll come of it, but 
then I don’t see that it can do any harm, either. I 
won’t say anything against it if you can make 
Squire Bostwick agree to it.” 

The next evening Mrs. Halroyd’s carriage bore 
the two ladies to call upon Squire Bostwick. They 
stated their object, and the gentleman listened, and 
answered slowly and apparently very doubtfully, 
with a preparatory “Hm!” He didn’t know 
about it — doubted whether the young folks would 


216 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


care much about anything of that sort, or whether 
it would do any good if they did. He thought few 
of them had money to spend on any lectures — very 
few. Mrs. Halroyd hastened to explain that there 
would be no charge, and after another pause the 
squire decided that tilings that were worth anything 
were generally worth paying for. He didn’t know 
that he approved of free lectures, and he thought 
throwing open school-houses in the evening had a 
tendency to ruin such buildings. Then there were 
lights to be provided : it would use up a good 
many candles. 

The ladies overcame that obstacle by proposing 
to illuminate the room themselves. Then he re- 
ferred to the danger of fire, and searching for 
other objections alluded to the mud that would be 
tracked into the room if there should be a rain the 
day before, and the dust that would be carried in 
if there should not be a rain. His visitors were 
growing discouraged when he reached the end of 
his list, and, unable to think of any further diffi- 
culties to urge, he remarked quite cheerfully, 

“ Well, if you think it’s all safe and right, I 
can’t say as I mind particularly, if Mr. Vance is 
willing, and Mr. Morton. Perhaps it’ll be a good 
thing, on the wffiole. Shouldn’t winder if it 
would.” 

“ How odd !” exclaimed Mrs. Halroyd when 
they had expressed their thanks and departed. 
“Now there is one more voice in the matter.” 


CHANGE OF PROGRAMME. 


217 


“ Not a voice ; only an echo,” laughed Lizzie ; 
and so it proved. 

Mr. Morton looked confused and perplexed, as 
he always did when the least responsibility was 
thrown upon him. He rubbed his forehead 
nervously, and instead of inquiring into the mer- 
its of the case only inquired if they had seen the 
other members of the committee. At the affirma- 
tive answer his face brightened : 

“ Well I’ll go for what they do, you see. That’s 
what I think — -just exactly what they think.” 

It was already late in the week ; but as it re- 
quired but brief time to circulate the notice of a 
meeting, they decided to hold it on the earlier of 
the days mentioned in Mr. Karr’s letter. Word 
was sent by the children from school and in various 
ways, and on Monday evening Mrs. Halroyd wrote 
to Mr. Karr, giving Lizzie the note that Joe might 
mail it early. 

But the next morning, unfortunately, Mr. Vance 
was confined to his room with a severe headache, 
and Joe, in consequence, was too busy to leave 
home. 

“ Why can’t you let Teddy mail the letter?” 
asked Mrs. Vance. “ I want him to go to the vil- 
lage this morning to get some yarn for me. He 
can do it well enough if I send a sample of what I 
want, and I’m sure he can mail the letter too.” 

“ Would you know how to do it, Teddy ?” asked 
Lizzie, rather doubtfully* 


218 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“ Course !” responded Teddy, as if the question 
were preposterous. “ It’s stamped and every- 
thing, ain’t it? Well, then, you just go into the 
office and drop it into a little place marked ‘Let- 
ters/ I should think I’d know that, when I’ve 
seen Joe do it lots of times/’ 

Notwithstanding which confident assertion, Liz- 
zie hesitated. But she could have no opportunity 
of communicating with Mrs. Halroyd before noon, 
and the missive must be sent at once. Unable to 
think of any better plan, she entrusted it to Teddy, 
placing it carefully in his pocket and charging him 
on no account to withdraw it until he reached the 
office, and to go directly there and mail the letter 
before attending to anything else. 

To all these directions Teddy promised obedience, 
interspersing his assurances with a request for cookies 
to eat by the way, a hint that five cents to expend 
in candy would be acceptable, and an opinion con- 
cerning the impossibility of his returning in time 
for school. 

“ It will make you too late for school this morn- 
ing, but you can go to school this afternoon. Now 
run along, and mind you do exactly as you’ve been 
told,” said Mrs. Vance by way of final injunction; 
and securing the desired cookies, Teddy departed 
with an air of business-like importance. 

He viewed that as an eventful morning. A half 
holiday from school and a trip to the village alone 
were a combination of pleasure and responsibility 


CHANGE OF PROGRAMME. 


219 


that made him feel as if several inches had been 
added to his height. He rather patronizingly re- 
minded Kip, who stopped him -at the gate, that 
“ boys shouldn’t ask too many questions,” and then 
condescended to inform him that he was “ going to 
’tend to some things for the women-folks.” 

The sunshine and the breeze were delightful, and 
he was tempted to lengthen his journey by follow- 
ing the windings of a very crooked brook ; but re- 
membering Lizzie’s commission, he resisted, com- 
promising the matter, however, by taking off his 
shoes and wading in the water wherever it crossed 
or ran parallel with the road. On entering the 
village allurements increased. There were the 
store-windows that called for examination, and 
some gay pictures pasted on a wall representing 
the wonderful performances in a “ world-renowned 
circus and menagerie.” But the most powerful at- 
traction presented itself in the form of a hand- 
organ and monkey. These were a novelty in 
Teddy’s experience, and almost irresistible. It 
was well for his integrity that they took the very 
street along which it was necessary for him to pass. 
The thought of losing sight of them was not to be 
tolerated for a moment, and as the man who bore 
them walked along one side of the street Teddy 
blundered forward on the other with his whole at- 
tention fixed upon them. Beaching the post-office 
he darted in, and, with his eyes still turning toward 
the door, deposited his mail. Then, with a feeling 


220 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


of relief that his duty was performed, he hurried 
out and marched after the peripatetic melody. 

From house to house he followed the organ, now 
perching upon a fence, now sitting upon a door- 
stone to enjoy the music, “ made just like grind- 
ing a coffee- m ill. ” He gave two cents of his half 
dime to the musician and a whole cooky to the 
monkey, following admiringly in their train until 
they had passed quite out of the village. 

Retracing his steps, Teddy sought the store 
where his mother had directed him to procure the 
yarn ; and when that errand was despatched, he 
bethought him of his three cents. Having spent a 
part of his capital, he was anxious to invest the re- 
mainder where it would yield the largest returns, 
and so determined to inquire in several places and 
see where he could get the most candy for three 
cents. When he had satisfied himself upon this 
point and made his purchase, he discovered that the 
yarn was missing. He had laid it down somewhere 
and forgotten it, and the recovery of it necessitated 
a return to every store he had visited. He found 
it in the last one, and then turned homeward. 

Half a day seemed an interminable time to 
Teddy. He thought there was scarcely anything 
he could not accomplish in it, and surely he had 
abundant leisure to follow the windings of the 
stream. In doing that he found a pleasant place to 
rest and eat his remaining cake. So it happened 
that he reached home so long after noon that he 


CHANGE OF PROGRAMME. 


221 


found his mother watching at the gate in a fever of 
anxiety about him. Teddy, was considerably sur- 
prised, and took his cold dinner and warm scolding 
very meekly. He had not been told to hurry, and he 
really had not thought he was wandering so long, 
but supposed he could be in time for dinner. It 
was far past school-time, but he did not consider 
that any overwhelming affliction, and was not a 
little dissatisfied when his mother insisted upon his 
going, late as it was. 

“ Lizzie will be uneasy, I know, and worry all 
the afternoon for fear something is wrong at home. 
I won’t have her troubled as I’ve been ; so eat 
your dinner and start at once,” said Mrs. Vance, 
decidedly. 

Teddy knew the uselessness of replying to that 
tone, and reluctantly but silently obeyed. 

“ Why, Teddy! what has kept you so late?” 
asked Lizzie as he sheepishly made his appearance 
about the middle of the afternoon. 

“ Well, you see, I didn’t get back — that is, I 
stayed ; but I’ve come right straight from home 
soon as I got my dinner,” said Teddy, not caring 
to repeat the story of his travels. 

“ And you mailed the letter ?” Lizzie asked, 
turning at once to the thought that had troubled 
her. 

“Yes, ma’am. I did that the very first thing 
Tore I went anywhere, and spite of organs and 
everything,” responded Teddy, emphatically, quite 


222 


OLD PORTMANTEA U. 


sure that his conduct was satisfactory so far; and 
Lizzie, reassured, asked no further questions. 

The evening came, clear and pleasant, and while 
it was still early Mrs. Halroyd drove over to the 
farm that she might walk with Lizzie to the school- 
house, while she sent Phrony with the carriage to 
meet Mr. Karr at the station. The children had 
begged to attend the meeting, and the little party 
set forth together, walking leisurely down the road 
in the cool, soft twilight. Some others were already 
there when they reached the building, and others 
soon came sauntering in singly or in groups — boys 
and girls, youths and maidens — until the little room 
was filled. 

Mrs. Halroyd and Lizzie glanced at each other 
as the faint sound of a distant whistle reached them. 
The train had come in, and Mr. Karr would soon 
arrive. They watched the old clock eagerly, 
listening to catch the first rattle of carriage-wheels. 
But the minutes ticked on and no speaker came. 
The hands on the timepiece pointed to half-past 
seven, and the audience began to grow restless. 
Lizzie went to the window and looked down the 
road, but she could see nothing of the carriage, and 
returned with a troubled face to her friend. 
What could have become of Phrony ? they asked 
each other, anxiously. Meanwhile, the gathered 
company grew more and more impatient. 

“ Are there enough of your school-children here 
to sing?” Mrs. Halroyd whispered, hurriedly, to 


CHANGE OF PROGRAMME. 


223 


Lizzie. “ That might keep the house quiet a lit- 
tle longer. Mr. Karr must come soon, or at least 
Phrony will bring some word. I cannot think 
what has detained them.” 

Lizzie glanced along the rows of benches, and 
recognizing some of her flock began to sing one of 
the temperance melodies she had taught them. The 
childish voices at once joined with hers ; but though 
she had purposely made her selection of song a long 
one and resolutely sang it through to gain all possi- 
ble time, the last line was reached and neither 
speaker nor Phrony appeared. The music had 
stilled the uneasy audience, however, and she whis- 
pered to Teddy, 

“ We will sing something more. Have you that 
copy of a hymn I gave you the other day — the one 
printed on a little strip of paper.” 

“ Guess so,” responded Teddy, beginning to fish 
in the jacket-pocket where he bestowed for safe- 
keeping the treasures he but seldom used. 

The first article he drew forth from that recepta- 
cle was a neat white envelope addressed to “ Rev. 
Henry Karr ” — the very letter Lizzie had so care- 
fully placed there that morning. 

“Teddy Vance!” exclaimed Lizzie in dire dis- 
may. “ You told me you had surely mailed that 
this morning.” 

Teddy gazed at the missive in such profound 
astonishment that he could scarcely find words to 
reply : 


224 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“ Why, I did ! I did as sure as anything ! 
Any way, I put something into the office,” continu- 
ing his search in his pocket. “ Must have been mv 
catechism. Yes; that’s what it was, ’cause it’s gone. 
Now, what good’ll that do the old post-office, I won- 
der?” 

To this last philosophical inquiry no one attempt- 
ed a reply. Mrs. Halroyd and Lizzie looked at 
each other with the more practical but equally be- 
wildering question of what to do. Meanwhile, the 
assembly manifested their impatience more loudly. 
A stamping of feet began, followed by whistling in 
various parts of the room. Calls of “ Lecture ! 
Where’s that lecture?” sounded here and there, 
interspersed with the muttered comments “ Sell !” 
and “Humbug!” And one individual who keenly 
appreciated his own wit observed, “This here’s 
what you call a total-absence meetin’ — total absence 
of speaker and everything.” 

Joe grew thoroughly indignant as the uproar in- 
creased. He had not been near enough to Teddy 
to learn that the letter had been found, but he knew 
from the delay that there had been a failure of 
some sort, and the distressed faces of the two ladies 
as they held a hurried consultation moved him to 
do something. He sprang to his feet, and without 
pausing to consider what he intended to do made 
his way to the platform and rapped loudly upon 
the table. 

“ See here !” he exclaimed. 


CHANGE OF PROGRAMME. 


225 


It was not an elegant substitute for the conven- 
tional “ Ladies and Gentlemen,” but it had the 
same effect : the noise ceased and the many faces 
turned toward him. Joe was too greatly vexed to 
be careful in his choice of sentences, and he spoke 
warmly : 

“ Do you think all the stamping and whistling 
you can do will hurry up a railroad train ? or stop 
a horse that may have run away out on the turn- 
pike? or make any man who is fifteen miles away 
hear you ? Because you must know as well as I do 
that something has happened — an accident or some 
mistake — or Mr. Karr would have been here be- 
fore this time. I’m sorry he isn’t here — as sorry as 
any of you — for a good lecture is a nice thing to 
listen to ; but do any of you need one on this sub- 
ject? Do you need to have some one come from 
fifteen miles away and coax you not to burn your 
own houses down or cut your own throats? 
Wouldn’t doing either of those things be just as sen- 
sible as beginning to drink liquor when you know 
that if you once begin as like as not you’ll get to 
be slaves to it, and that it will waste your property, 
break the hearts of your friends, ruin your character, 
and leave you good for nothing in this world and 
the next?” Joe’s vexation had expended itself, and 
he uttered the last sentence more quietly. 

“ That’s the talk! Go ahead, Joe! Give us 
the lecture yourself!” cried two or three voices, 
good-naturedly, as Joe paused. 


226 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


He laughed ; but having come to be talked to, 
the assembly was determined some one should, and 
the cries of “Go on !” continued. Mrs. Ilalroyd’s 
bright eyes smiled upon him and Lizzie nodded 
encouragement; and though coloring a little and 
more embarrassed than he had been at first, Joe 
began again : 

“ Well, I suppose I can tell you all I know 
about it ; that won’t take long.” 

After all, his knowledge was not so readily ex- 
hausted. Old Portmanteau, George Vance’s busi- 
ness and the stoiy of Richard Chester had given 
him some deep thoughts and firm convictions upon 
the subject. He was an omnivorous reader, too, 
and had gathered many anecdotes and illustrations 
that now came to mind and greatly pleased his 
hearers. Joe’s speech was not elegant, not eloquent, 
except in so far as his earnestness made it so. If 
he had been previously requested to address such 
a meeting, he would have refused it as a thing 
impossible; but finding himself talking to them 
“almost before he knew it,” as he said afterward, 
it was not so hard to keep on. He knew the boys 
and they knew him — at the girls, as far as possible, 
he avoided looking — and he spoke simply and sin- 
cerely of the sin and evil of intemperance, of yield- 
ing to it themselves or helping to foster it in others. 
Some remarks in his own quaint, original style 
called forth hearty applause from his hearers; and 
when he had said all he had to say, he stopped — 


CHANGE OF PROGRAMME. 


227 


a bit of wisdom not always practiced by more ex- 
perienced orators. 

Phrony had arrived while he was speaking, and 
making her way to Mrs. Halroyd explained that, 
not finding Mr. Karr at the station, she had thought 
it possible that she had in some way missed him 
and that he might have gone directly to Mrs. 
Halroyd’s house, and she had accordingly returned 
home in search of him. The matter was briefly 
rehearsed to Joe, and he informed the assembly 
that, through a strange mistake, Mr. Karr had not 
received the communication notifying him of the 
evening selected for the lecture, but the ladies 
hoped the pleasure of hearing him was only post- 
poned to some time in the near future. 

Then a few songs were given, and the meeting 
ended with good feeling and far more pleasantly 
than its inauspicious opening had promised. 

“ Oh dear !” said Lizzie, with a long breath of 
relief, when once more in the open air and driving 
homeward with Mrs. Halroyd ; “ what a situation 
we were placed in !” 

“ Possibly it may prove a fortunate bl under, ” 
answered her friend, thoughtfully. “ Pm not sure 
that Joe’s words will not do more good than Mr. 
Karr could have done. At least, such a firm, out- 
spoken expression of his own sentiments will do 
him good and give him influence over others. I 
am growing proud of Joe.” 


CHAPTER XV. 

OPENING DOORS. 

RRIVING at home, Lizzie found visitors — 
Mr. and Mrs. George Vance and Lena. 
Thinner and more sallow still the child 
had grown. Hoping that a few weeks in the 
country might benefit her health, her parents 
had yielded to her persistent request and brought 
her to her grandfather’s. Neither of the parents 
intended remaining more than a day or two. Mrs. 
Vance did not like the country ; she considered it 
at best but a necessary evil — a sort of place that 
must surround all cities in order that vegetables, 
fruits, butter and eggs might be produced, but not 
to be thought of as an abiding-place except by 
those whom misfortune deprived of a choice. 

“ There’s no comfort in riding where one meets 
nobody. There is nothing to see or hear or do ex- 
cept the most tiresome things, and really nothing 
here to live for that I can discover/’ she observed 
to her husband. “ But then,” she added, with a 
complacent little sigh, “all people are not so sensi- 
tive as to feel these finer needs of existence. I re- 
228 



OPENING BOORS. 


229 


quire a great deal to make me comfortable — more 
than most persons, I sometimes think.” 

“ I often think that too,” responded Mr. Vance, 
rather sarcastically. 

He had other reasons for not wishing to remain 
in the country : he disliked the leisure. True, he 
sometimes wished for it when wearied and harassed 
by business cares; not often of late, however, for 
he had found that it brought an unrest far harder 
to be borne than any physical fatigue — that old re- 
fusal of things dead and gone to stay buried. 
Then, too, when absent from his business, he was 
continually troubled with a sense of insecurity in 
regard to it ; he felt very little confidence in those 
he left in charge. 

“ I don’t see why you don’t engage some thor- 
oughly honest, temperate, high-principled, compe- 
tent man to attend to it,” Mrs. Vance remarked 
when he complained of his inability to trust those 
by whom he was surrounded. 

He did not tell her that men of the character she 
described would not engage in such occupation as 
his; that high principle would not offer itself there, 
temperance, if it came, was soon lost, and honesty 
and ability disappeared with it. A swift thought 
flashed the truth through his mind, but he made 
no answer. 

A long stay in the country became especially un- 
desirable to both at this time, for the children were 
so full of the adventures and misadventures of their 


230 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


temperance meeting that they could talk of little 
else. Teddy’s exploit with the letter was recount- 
ed ; and though Mr. George Vance felt secretly in- 
clined to reward the boy for the blunder, his mother 
viewed the subject differently and severely censured 
his carelessness. Then, too, the children were con- 
stantly talking of their society. They told Lena 
of it the very first evening and exhibited their 
badges, and they seemed always singing its songs. 

“‘No poison liquor will I touch, 

Nor ever give ray neighbor such/” 

shouted Kip from the garden ; and Sis piped from 
the stairway, 

“ ‘ We’ve joined the clear-cold-water band: 

We’ 11 drive intemperance from the land.’” 

“ Miss Chester teaches the children rather trashy - 
ditties, doesn’t she?” remarked Mr. Vance, junior, 
to his father, with a slightly contemptuous smile. 

“ Oh, well, children will be children, you know, 
and anything with a jingle suits them,” answered 
Mr. Vance, senior, indulgently. “If it keeps any 
of them from a taste for drink, it won’t be a bad 
thing. Afraid that sort of thing’ll damage your 
trade, eh, George ?” and the farmer laughed, then 
added, more seriously, “You see, Lizzie has had 
reason enough to feel pretty deeply on this point, 
poor girl !” 

The allusion was made innocently, without a 


OPENING DOORS. 


231 


thought of its bearing upon his hearer, but George 
Vance started as if the words had stung him. Al- 
together, the atmosphere of the farm was not con- 
genial, and Mr. Vance and his wife remained but a 
day. 

“I suppose Miss Chester has become almost a 
monomaniac on that subject since her brother made 
such a wreck of himself/’ Mr. Vance remarked, 
impatiently, when they were seated in the cars. 
“She is filling the whole house with that sort of 
thing as thoroughly as Old Portmanteau could do. 
If we had not promised that Lena should stay, I 
wouldn’t have left her. I presume she will come 
home with her head more full of nonsense than 
ever.” 

“ Yes, and then I must be tormented with it,” 
said Mrs. Vance, plaintively. “It has always 
been annoying me more or less ever since that hor- 
rible Chester affair, and it is very wearing. It 
really reminds me of that time when one of the 
servants fell asleep with her lamp burning and set 
the bedding on fire. That odor of burnt feathers 
was the most disagreeable thing, and it pervaded 
the whole house for an unconscionable length of 
time. Whenever I opened a trunk or closet or 
drawer I noticed it ; and when I thought we were 
rid of it in one place, it was sure to come across me 
in another. I positively detected it in my clothing 
and handkerchiefs. Now, this thing is not just like 
that, of course, but it seems as if it met one every- 


232 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


where and is always appearing in the most unlook- 
ed-for places. It worries me, and I can’t bear to 
be worried. I really think, George,” continued 
Mrs. Vance, growing fretful as she pondered her 
grievances, “ that you ought to have considered all 
these things before you went into this business. It 
is all very well to make money — one must have 
money to be comfortable or respected — but it is so 
disagreeable to feel as if books and sermons and 
that sort of thing were pointed at one’s self. Then 
to have any one fancy sometimes that there is an 
atmosphere of skeletons and prisons and Cain 
clinging about one, like — like that insufferable odor 
of burnt feathers ! It seems to me no poor sensi- 
tive soul was ever annoyed as I am.” 

Her husband looked at her as she sat there, so 
richly attired, with everything about her speaking 
of wealth, yet. with a fretted, care-lined, weary face. 
She was surely not a happy woman ; all his money 
could not make her so, neither had it made him a 
happy man. He acknowledged it gloomily to him- 
self that day. When he had started in life, he had 
eagerly planned for riches as the one thing desira- 
ble, and had called that course the wisest which 
would secure his wish most speedily, but he then 
thought that half his present possessions would 
bring perfect satisfaction, ease and freedom, and 
make his life one long holiday. He smiled rather 
bitterly as he contrasted the result with his expec- 
tations. Not one happy face was in his home, and 


OPENING POOPS. 


233 


he was growing more and more harassed, burdened 
and anxious with every year. 

If he had been blessed with a son to share the 
care and responsibility with him — one whose inter- 
ests were identical with his own, and to whom he 
could leave all his property at last — it would seem 
very different, he thought. Then a swift doubt 
flashed through his mind. Would it have been 
safe to introduce a son into that business? Would 
it not have been risking the dishonor and grief that 
had come to so many homes ? Knowing all that 
he knew of the lives of young men in the city, 
would he have dared to do it? Questions these 
were that George Vance did not pause to answer. 
He shook them off, assuring himself impatiently 
that it would require but a little more leisure to 
make him a perfectly idiotic dreamer. He bought 
a newspaper, interposed it between his wife’s dis- 
contented face and his own, and succeeded finally 
in interesting himself in its contents. 

Lena had decided at once that she should like 
country life, and she watched her parents’ depart- 
ure with an unmistakable air of satisfaction and 
relief. 

“ Don’t you care for them ?” asked Mabel, won- 
deringly. 

“ Oh yes, I like them pretty well, only it’s nice 
to be sure I’m left here; and they’re gone, you 
know,” Lena explained, with a simple straightfor- 
wardness that quite shocked Mrs. Vance, who 


234 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


always declared that she never knew what to make 
of that child. 

It seemed that no one had known what to make 
of her. She was still unfashioned and unmoulded. 
Her mother’s ideal had been a sprightly, beautiful, 
chattering fairy in childhood, expanding into a 
brilliant, stylish, fascinating young-ladyhood, but 
Lena had not proved the sort of material from 
which anything of the kind could be manufactured ; 
she grew into odd, unlooked-for ways and ideas of 
her own, and was unconsciously becoming one of 
her mother’s grievances. 

Lizzie pitied the lonely, untaught child, so poor 
amid all her father’s wealth, fed only with husks 
and seeing already with those strangely deep eyes 
of hers that they were husks, yet knowing of 
nothing better, though her soul grew pinched and 
starved. 

“Did you like to put down your book and tell 
the children those stories?” she asked of Lizzie one 
evening. “ I think I should rather have read.” 

“ So should I,” Lizzie answered. 

“ Why didn’t you, then ? You didn’t have to do 
as they wanted you to.” 

“ No ; but it is not right to do only what pleases 
ourselves, Lena; we should try to please others 
too.” 

“Why, I don’t,” said Lena, honestly; “I just 
think what I want to do, and not about any one 
else, unless it’s mamma sometimes.- She always 


OPENING POORS. 


235 


says I ought to try to please her ; but I can’t, you 
know, because hardly anything ever does please 
her.” 

“Why do you try to please yourself?” asked 
Lizzie, overlooking the last sentence. 

“ Because I want to enjoy myself.” 

“ But can you do it in that way ? Does that 
make you happy ? Think of some time when you 
have tried all through the day to please only your- 
self, and see whether it was a happy day.” 

Lizzie took up her book again and left the 
thought to germinate, but in a little while Lena 
came to her again : 

“ No, I wasn’t happy ; but why wasn’t I ? It 
wasn’t just one day, you know, because I almost 
always do that way ; but why am I not happy ?” 

“ God made us that we might live for him, Lena, 
and to help one another, and we can’t be happy so 
long as we are not trying to do it.” 

“ There ! I thought there was some other an- 
swer,” exclaimed the child. 

“ Answer to what ?” Lizzie asked, wonderingly. 

“ Oh, to something. I wondered what so many 
folks were- for — what was the good of their living a 
while and then not living any longer. I asked 
papa once, and he said, Child, I believe your head 
is just like an empty house : they always fill up with 
cobwebs, bats, echoes and strange noises until they 
seem haunted. If your head were furnished like 
other people’s, you would get rid of such queer, 


236 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


ghostly notions. We must send you to school again 
as soon as you are strong enough to go.’ But I 
didn’t go; and I’ve thought of that since when 
I’ve watched an empty house across the street from 
us. It can’t have fire and lights and furniture so 
long as nobody moves in ; and when I look at it, 
I feel as if it were lonely and was thinking 
queer things. But you just said what folks live 
for, and that’s what made me say it was another 
answer.” 

Lizzie took up a little Bible that was lying near 
her and opened it. 

“Let us read this verse together, Lena,” she 
said : “ ‘ For whosoever will save his life shall lose 
it; but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the 
same shall save it.’ Whoever tries to save his life 
all for himself will lose it even in this world — will 
lose all the comfort and sweetness and happiness 
of it; but whoever is willing to lose it — to give up 
what seems for his own ease and pleasure to do the 
will of the Lord and help others — he shall find 
that he has saved it, kept the greatest enjoyment 
and happiness of it. And that is true of the single 
days as of the whole life — true of time, talents and 
money, and of everything God gives to us.” 

The large black eyes were fixed earnestly on Liz- 
zie’s face, as if the child were drinking in a new 
thought ; but when Mabel came, a moment later, 
and asked what they were doing, she answered in- 
differently, “ Trying to move in furniture,” and 


OPENING POOPS. 


237 


taking up an old magazine slipped away to a win- 
dow to read. 

Lizzie sought patiently to bring some new light 
and warmth to the chilled, unchildlike life in the 
few weeks Lena was with them. Nor were the in- 
fluences brought to bear upon her wholly without 
effect. She changed even in that brief time, and 
Mrs. Vance remarked, when she had been finally 
summoned home, “I don’t know but she might 
have thawed into something natural if they had 
let her stay.” 

In one of those weeks Joe came home one day 
with a letter addressed to “ Mr. Joseph Kenyon ” 
— a strange circumstance for Joe, and his face wore 
an odd expression when he carried the missive to 
Lizzie : 

“What do you think of this? Some folks up 
in the next district have started a temperance so- 
ciety, or are going to, or something of the sort, and 
they’ve written this to ask me to come up some even- 
ing and talk to them.” 

“Why, Joe !” exclaimed Lizzie, in astonishment. 

“I thought it was a joke at first,” said Joe, slow- 
ly. “ I knew some of the fellows from there were 
down at our school-house that night, and I thought 
they had just done this for fun. But I saw some 
of the boys afterward, and they’re in sober earnest. 
They say they can get their school-house, and they 
want me to come. I don’t suppose they really care 
so much about temperance, but they like meetings 


238 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


or anything that will bring the young folks all out 
together for a good time ; and they couldn’t get 
any real lecturer, you know, and so — ■” Joe hes- 
itated. “ Well, I told them I couldn’t do it — that 
I never made a speech in my life, and didn’t know 
how; but they said I could say what I did the 
other night, and that would satisfy them.” 

“ Yes, you can, and you can say more and better 
if you have time to think of it beforehand,” said 
Lizzie, recovering from her first surprise and enter- 
ing upon the subject earnestly. “ Don’t refuse, Joe; 
no matter if you are not a real lecturer, as you say, 
you may do them some good.” 

“ If I knew anything to say — ” said Joe, irreso- 
lutely. 

“ You found enough to say the other night — you 
always do when you are interested and in earnest; 
and now you will have time to study what you 
wish to say,” Lizzie urged. “ I’m sure you can 
do it.” 

u So am I,” said Mabel, coming to her side. u 1 
liked what you said at our meeting, Joe, and I 
think there are the same kind of boys and girls 
there.” 

Under their persuasion Joe accepted. Then, as 
he phrased it, his “ tribulations began.” He talked 
temperance to the horses in the barn, wasting forci- 
ble arguments upon the noble creatures, who never 
tasted anything stronger than water. He launched 
striking illustrations after the cows, as he drove 


OPENING DOORS. 


239 


them home from pasture in the evening, and 
scribbled notes on bits of paper, chips and fence- 
rails, gathering up these scattered ideas afterward, 
writing them out more fully and arranging them 
in an old note-book. 

Lizzie rendered him some assistance, suggested a 
few thoughts and amended some errors ; and when 
the evening came, she and Mabel watched his de- 
parture and wished him success when he looked 
back from the gate with a half-comical, half- 
dolorous expression, declaring that he felt as if he 
had “a jumping toothache and were bound for the 
dentist’s.” 

Both were anxious for an account of his adven- 
tures, but they scarcely spoke with him the next 
morning, for he had already breakfasted when they 
came down stairs and was hurrying away on an 
errand for Mr. Vance, who wished some work 
taken early to the village blacksmith. It was one 
of Joe’s busy days; he did not appear at school, 
and Lizzie had no opportunity of talking with him 
until evening, when she found him sitting quietly 
on the back steps. 

“ Meditating, Joe? How prospered our lecture- 
tour ?” she asked. 

He was not thinking of that, evidently ; he 
seemed to recall his thoughts to it from a long dis- 
tance, and answered quietly that the meeting had 
succeeded very well ; the school-room — not a large 
one — had been filled, and he had not found it so 


240 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


difficult to speak as he had feared. He had spent 
a pleasant evening. 

“ But I have found at last what it is I want to 
be — to do,” he said, looking up at Lizzie with a 
thoughtful face. 

“ You haven’t fallen so in love with lecturing?” 
she questioned, in surprise. 

Joe laughed : 

“ No. Because I stumbled accidentally into mak- 
ing a few people hear me one night, and a few more 
asked to hear me another night because they couldn’t 
afford anybody better, I’m not so conceited as to 
fancy that I’ve a mission to talk all the time. 
That’s not it. But there were some strangers at the 
school-house last night,, some engineers — or, rather, 
a civil engineer and his assistants. You know 
there’s been talk of laying a branch railroad down 
there and building a bridge across the river ? 
Well, they’re on that business — to examine the 
land, make surveys, draw plans, and that sort of 
thing. They dropped into the meeting to pass 
away the time, I suppose, because they had not 
much else to do in such a country- place in the 
evening. I talked with them quite a while after 
the meeting.” 

“ And that is what you want to be?” Lizzie ask- 
ed — “a civil engineer?” „ 

“Yes; I think that is it,” Joe answered, slowly. 
“ I never thought about it before — I scarcely knew 
anything about it ; but, you see, it takes in the very 


OPENING DOORS. 


241 


things that always seem sort of natural to me. It’s 
out-of-door work, noticing different kinds of coun- 
try and land, planning and building. But then it 
needs a great deal more knowledge than I have ;” 
and Joe sighed. 

u A pretty thorough acquaintance with mathe- 
matics, I suppose,” Lizzie said, considering the 
matter. “ But then that is your favorite study, Joe 
— the one you always delight in.” 

“ Yes,” Joe answered, brightening again. “ Oh, 
I mean to keep working toward it, now that I’ve 
found what I want, and I’ll never give it up unless 
I find that there isn’t a bit of chance for me. It 
will be something like one of those dissected maps, 
you see — finding the work that needs to be done 
and the fellow that wants to do it, and fitting 
them together.” 

The party of surveyors remained in the neighbor- 
hood for several days, and Joe saw them two or 
three times, making careful inquiries and gaining 
considerable information from the engineer, a free, 
bluff, genial man, who was pleased with Joe and 
his interest in their work. He advised him what 
and how to study, and told him, when they were 
going away, that he would probably see them again 
in a few months if the work on the bridge was 
carried forward, as he presumed it would be. 

Mrs. Halroyd wrote again to Mr. Karr, and 
he came and spoke earnestly and well to his lit- 
tle country audience. But Teddy’s mistake had 
16 


242 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


? 


wrought its mission ; the results springing from it 
were changing the current of a life. These are the 
things that we call accidents and trifles ; what po- 
tent factors they become in our own and others’ 
history we seldom pause to trace. 

Joe’s new purpose was no boyish fancy. He be- 
gan “ to work toward it/’ as he had said, and study 
toward it also. Mrs. Halroyd lingered in the 
country until the trees lost their October glory of 
coloring, and then departed for her city home, pur- 
posing to return another year. Soon after her ar- 
rival at home Joe received a package of valuable 
books — books carefully selected upon the subjects 
lie most wished to study, and delicately marked, 
“ a token of grateful remembrance from little 
Harold.” 


CHAPTER XVI. 



CHANGES AND LETTERS. 

INTER came, shutting the people at the 
farm into their own little world while the 
earth lay resting, white-robed and still ; 
but the months, though quiet, were busy, 
and Lizzie, vibrating between home and 
school, knew that at least one of her pupils was 
making rapid progress, surpassing her, indeed, in 
some things. 

The new road had been finally determined upon, 
and with the spring work began upon the bridge 
in earnest. Joe visited it often, watching and 
studying it and talking with his friend the engi- 
neer, and before the summer ended he had received 
from him the offer of a place in his party the en- 
suing autumn. Over this proposition Joe pondered 
seriously. It was a perplexing case of “ cross- 
roads,” and not to be decided lightly. 

“ You see, it’s in the line I want to go,” he said 
to Lizzie; “ but then, of course, I can’t earn much 
by it at first, and .it will be hard working my way 


up from such a start as he can give 


me now, 
243 


and 


244 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


that’s what I want to do, or I don’t want to go 
info it at all. I’ve got a sure place where I am, 
and I might stick to it and study a while and wait 
for a better opening when I’m better ready for one. 
But then, again, I might keep waiting and no 
chance come.” 

Lizzie could not venture to advise. 

“ There are so many sides to it, Joe,” she said, 
u and it is your own future. No one can decide it 
for you ; only you can do as God’s people did of 
old.” 

“ Inquire of the Lord ?” said Joe, questioninglv. 
“I wish I could be like David — sure to know the 
right time and way by the ‘ marching in the tops 
of the mulberry trees,’ ” he added, wistfully. 

But in a day or two he announced his decision 
characteristically : 

“ I’ll go. When there’s a meadow in your way, 
it’s no use refusing to go through the bars right in 
front of you because you can’t see clear across the 
field.” 

He informed Mr. Vance of his purpose at once, 
that some one might be engaged to take his place 
on the farm. The old farmer opposed the whole 
project. Why did Joe want to leave a good steady 
place for such a will-o’-the-wisp business of tramp- 
ing over the country ? He doubted whether it 
were any useful work at all ; and if it were, farm- 
ing was^st as much so, and more too. What was 
the use of spoiling a good farmer to make a travel- 


CHANGES AND LETTERS. 


245 


ing tinker? He really had given Joe credit for 
more sense. 

Joe listened good-naturedly and explained pa- 
tiently ; then Mr. Vance viewed the matter from 
his own side: What was he to do? How could 
he get along with some careless fellow that knew 
nothing about the place and would take no interest 
in it? He couldn’t have everything left on his 
hands at his age. He had expected Joe to stay 
and look after everything as long as he needed 
him. It was very hard that he should insist on 
going off now, when he had trusted him as if he 
were his son. 

“ But you have boys of your own, Mr. Vance,” 
said Joe. 

“Ted and Kip — yes; but it will be some time 
before they can be much help to me.” 

“ And when they are old enough for that, there’d 
be no place for me here,” said Joe, by way of re- 
minding him that his position was not exactly that 
of a son. 

“ Well, well ! I don’t see any sense in it, and I 
won’t,” retorted Mr. Vance, unconsciously explain- 
ing his first statement by his last. “But you’ll do 
as you please, Joe, I suppose. I don’t mean to say 
that you haven’t a right to go if you choose, or 
that you haven’t done all I could expect while you 
stayed,” he added, softening a little at sight of Joe’s 
clouded face. 

Mr. Vance had never bestowed any special com- 


246 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


mendation upon Joe’s faithfulness and ability, but 
he awakened to a keen appreciation of them now 
that he was about to lose him, betraying his opinion, 
however, less by what he said of him than by his 
dissertations on the shortcomings of others who 
came to see about taking Joe’s place without pos- 
sessing Joe’s qualifications. He did a good deal of 
half-fretful, half-good-natured scolding in those last 
weeks of Joe’s stay, but he insisted that since the 
boy would go tearing over the country he should 
have a good supply of clothing to start with, add- 
ing that it was doubtful if he earned any more 
very soon in that high-flying business he was going 
into. So the tailor’s skill was solicited, and Miss 
Prudy’s needle called into requisition besides. 

Lizzie had not fully realized how much she cared 
for her brave, kind, noble-hearted friend and pupil 
until he was going away; then it seemed almost 
like parting from a younger brother. She told 
him so, and Mabel added through her tears, 

“Well, he is my brother, because I promised; 
didn’t I, Joe?” 

The old farmhouse seemed lonely when Joe was 
gone. Every one missed him ; and as time passed, 
and letters came back to them telling of his success 
and liking for his new work, but full of grateful feel- 
ing and affection for the only home he had ever 
known, he grew to be, in their talk of him, not 
simply Joe, but “our Joe.” 

The months passed quietly in that country home, 


CHANGES AND LETTERS. 


247 


slipping almost unnoticed into years. Mrs. Hal- 
royd came and went with the summers. She liked 
the peaceful, pleasant nook she had found there, 
and returned to it season after season, while Lizzie 
often spent part of her winter vacations with her 
in the city. The little temperance society organ- 
ized among the children had lived and flourished, 
and, together with the efforts for the older ones, had 
not been in vain. A deeper feeling and more 
wholesome sentiment had been aroused, and were 
slowly but surely gaining strength in all that com- 
munity. 

Joe’s letters told that he had not lost his early 
interest in that subject, nor had he forgotten his 
old experience in speaking upon it. Occasionally, 
surrounded by a group of men — often rough ones 
— in some of the out-of-the-way places to which 
business called him, he brought into requisition his 
ready tongue and fund of illustrations to entertain 
while he tried to win them to better habits and 
lives. 

“ I see so much of this evil everywhere,” he 
wrote to Lizzie, “and I always think of Old Port- 
manteau and how earnestly he talked of fighting 
the giant. I think, if it were only for his sake, I 
should make a point of giving it one good blow 
whenever it crossed my path.” 

It was in one of those quiet days that anoth- 
er letter came to Lizzie — a letter longed, waited, 
prayed for through so many weary years that when 


248 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


at last she held it in her hand she could scarcely re- 
alize that it was not a dream, that she really read 
in Kick’s own hand the words so heavily freighted 
with blessing : 

“ Lizzie, Jesus of Nazareth hath passed by, and 
with his presence healing and hope has come to me 
— even to me. I am a prisoner, but the Son hath 
made me free; a sinner — how great a one he only 
knows — but his blood does cleanse from all sin. 
Oh, I cannot tell you what it is like or how it 
seems to me, but this I know: the life he has re- 
deemed is no longer mine, but his, and so is not 
worthless. I wonder if any but one like me can 
see the depth of meaning, of comfort, that I do in 
the words, ‘ I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in 
me : and the life that I now live in the flesh I live 
by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and 
gave himself for me’? That makes even my life 
a thing to be held both sacredly and hopefully, 
stained and darkened though so many years of it 
have been.” 

He told how the light had come to him first, a 
gleam in some words the chaplain had spoken, and 
grown bright and clear at last by the teaching of 
God’s own word. Full, tender and earnest the 
letter was — not joyous and breathing the eager 
enthusiasm to enter upon some great work that a 
younger, gladder life might have known, but hum- 
ble, peaceful and earnest, so unlike the brief, bitter, 
gloomy messages poor Kick had always sent that 


CHANGES AND LETTERS. 


249 


Lizzie could but read it again and again, wonder- 
ing amid her thanksgiving. One sentence was 
sweeter than all the rest: 

“ And, dear sister, the faithful human love that 
would not let me go and has held me fast through 
everything helped me at last to comprehend, to be- 
lieve in and to accept the love of God.” 

A part of this letter — all that did not seem too 
sacredly her own to be shared with those who had 
never loved Rick — Lizzie read to her uncle and 
aunt. 

“Well, that’s good, very good, I’m sure,” said 
Mr. Vance, answering with an effort. “I’m glad 
to hear it, and I hope it may hold out — I do, 
really.” 

But the implied doubt did not trouble Lizzie. 
She felt that the prayer had been answered, the 
promise kept, “ If a son shall ask bread of any of 
you that is a father, will he give him a stone?” 
God would not mock her with a seeming gift. 
Mabel, grown from childhood into a thoughtful 
girlhood, whispered, with her cheek pressed against 
her sister’s, 

“ Now God has accepted mamma’s last offering : 
‘ I give us all to Christ for ever.’ How happy she 
must be to-night !” 

Other letters followed, telling of Rick’s work 
and studies. He was allowed much freedom and 
many privileges ; his work was chiefly in the 
hospital and dispensary, and through the kindness 


250 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


of his friend the surgeon he had many opportunities 
for medical study and for gaining practical infor- 
mation. The surgeon had already offered him 
plenty of work as his assistant if he would remain 
with him after he should be free — a time no longer 
in the far future — and in the mean while he was 
assisting him and receiving instruction and help in 
return. The chaplain’s wife, who had occasionally 
communicated with Lizzie since her visit to . the 
prison, wrote now also, mentioning Rick in terms 
of warm interest, telling of the friends he had won 
and of the physician’s estimate of his services and 
ability, and suggesting the probability of his release 
before his term expired. 

Lizzie began to plan then, and steadily, though 
silently, to make her preparations for going to 
Rick as soon as he should be free. He would not 
ask her to come to him, she knew, but he would 
need her; he would feel desolate and lonely, and 
she could make a home for him. All the strength 
of her sisterly tenderness and love gathered in 
womanly fashion around this one whom she feared 
would be in some measure outcast and scorned, and 
she resolved to go to him, to share his life, what- 
ever it might be, and to uphold him with her 
confidence and affection. 

Much as she thought of all this, with a mingling 
of sadness and hopefulness forming many projects 
for the future, she did not speak of it. It would 
cause grief^ she knew, and arouse opposition ; then, 


CHANGES AND LETTERS. 


251 


too, much might occur before the time really came 
to make her path smoother and render her going 
less painful ; at least, her uncle and aunt would 
have become assured of Rick’s sincerity. So she 
waited, teaching still in the old school-house, whose 
occupants had greatly changed since she first assum- 
ed sway there. Many of the older ones had gone, 
and the little children had grown into their places. 
Teddy was so occupied with work upon the farm 
that his attendance was as irregular as Joe’s had 
once been, while Kip was pre-eminently the “big 
boy ” of the school. Mabel was away, attending 
school elsewhere for a year, that she might receive 
greater advantages than Lizzie’s small dominion 
could afford her. 

Lizzie’s girlhood had gone — slipped away so 
stealthily amid her many experiences, bitter and 
sweet, that she scarcely noticed it until the little 
heads growing up to a level with her own reminded 
her of it. Her face had lost its fresh girlishness, 
but it had gained strength and nobleness — that pa- 
tient sweetness that makes some women’s faces so 
beautiful — a loveliness that no youthful grace or 
fairness can impart. 

But perhaps Lizzie realized most fully how the 
years had flown when she looked at Joe. He came 
to the old farm on a visit sometimes, and was wel- 
comed as if it were really his home. Mr. Vance 
began to take great satisfaction in Joe’s successful 
career. He felt that he had “ pretty nearly made 


252 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


that boy,” as he observed now and then to some 
neighbors; and as the boy had developed into a 
strong-souled, intelligent, manly man, rising fairly 
in his chosen profession and making his sound com- 
mon sense and high principles felt wherever he 
went, Mr. Vance grew proportionately proud of 
him. 

“ I don’t know as he has George’s faculty for 
making money, but then I don’t know but it’ll be 
just as good for him if he hasn’t,” the old farmer 
remarked one day. “He seems happy enough — 
he never did mind roughing it a little — and he’s 
getting along well enough, too. Sometimes I think, 
when men get rich so young, they don’t half enjoy 
it. They have everything they want, as far as any- 
body can see, and yet they’re uneasy and discon- 
tented,” he added with a sigh. 

He had noticed George’s growing unrest and the 
careworn, disappointed look that was settling more 
and more upon his face as the years passed. Even 
the father began to perceive that his son’s life was 
not an enviable one, though he did not clearly com- 
prehend the reason. 

Indeed, George Vance himself scarcely under- 
stood the cause. He was thoroughly dissatisfied 
with the business upon which he had once bestowed 
so much energy and ambition. It had grown to 
be a weight and burden. He sickened sometimes 
at the sight of the barrels and hogsheads in the 
storehouse and the great vats in the distillery. He 


CHANGES AND LETTERS. 


253 


faced them reluctantly in the morning and turned 
his back upon them gladly at night, wishing he 
could banish them from thought as from sight. He 
would not have acknowledged even to himself that 
any subtle remorse was steadily wearing upon him. 
He said the business was too confining and the dif- 
ficulty of securing trustworthy assistants left it en- 
tirely too much in own hands, forcing him into a 
sort of slavery to it. There were disagreeable 
things connected with it, and the unreasonable 
prejudice of his wife and Lena — he assured himself 
very often, and with vehement emphasis sometimes, 
that it was an utterly unreasonable prejudice — made 
it more unpleasant. He was anxious to be rid of 
it. ; he was sure of that at last. He had determin- 
ed to dispose of it, but he could not bear to do so 
at a sacrifice. The greed of gain, fostered so long, 
had grown too strong for that, and the distillery had 
never been more profitable than now. 

So he waited, hoping to make some arrangements 
by which he could realize what he considered its 
full value, and to discover some other investment 
which would promise as large returns. Meanwhile, 
his health was failing. Unremitting care and re- 
sponsibility, with the unrest of heart and brain, 
were wearing him out. Physicians warned him 
that he must give up his busy, harassing life for 
leisure and travel. Unwilling — unable, he said — 
to obey the injunction, he attempted to compromise 
by going off on short trips here and there — brief 


254 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


absences of a few days that took his body from the 
scene of action and filled his mind with a double 
burden of uneasiness because he was not there. 

Often he found upon his return some evidences 
of unfaithfulness and mismanagement that called 
forth fierce resolutions to remain at his post — reso- 
lutions adhered to until increasing sleeplessness 
again forced him into a partial compliance with 
medical advice. Careless of others’ good in the 
business he was pursuing and seeking only selfish 
ends, it was natural that the whole establishment 
should partake of the same character — every man 
for himself. Moreover, he was not the genial, 
carelessly-good-tempered man he had once been ; 
he had grown harder, more suspicious and censori- 
ous, and was proportionately disliked and defraud- 
ed whenever an opportunity occurred. 

He was returning from a fortnight’s absence one 
night, jaded and unrefreshed, when, as he neared 
his home and dismissed the carriage, the fire-alarm 
sounded loudly. He paused on the steps, watch- 
ing while, a lurid glare crept up over the cloudy 
sky, deepening and brightening to a flame-like red. 

“In the direction of the distillery,” said a voice 
from the throng hurrying by in the street. 

Mr. Vance caught the words, and without enter- 
ing his house turned, hurried down the steps and 
made his way toward the scene of conflagration. 
It was only a vague fear that possessed him at first 
— an anxiety to see that his property was in nowise 



The Distillery on Fire 


Page 254 





















' 


























































CHANGES AND LETTERS. 


255 


endangered by any fire near it; but as he advanced, 
noting one after another the familiar landmarks 
showing in that red glare, his step grew more rapid, 
his manner more excited. The flames were sweep- 
ing up wildly. He could hear the heavy breath- 
ing of the engines and the hoarse voices of the 
firemen shouting their orders; he could scarcely 
mistake the spot, and he had little need to ask at 
last the question he put in a strange, husky voice 
to one whom he met : 

“ Where is the fire? What is it?” 

‘‘Vance’s distillery, sir. Turn the next corner 
and you’ll see it plainly,” answered the man, a 
stranger. 

Mechanically Mr. Vance walked on as directed, 
until, turning into another street, the fire was in 
full view. He paused then, and leaning back against 
a wall gazed upon the scene without making any 
effort to draw nearer. A strange stupor was upon 
him. The sight held him with fearful fascination. 
The great building, isolated from all others, was 
completely enveloped in flames that roared, crackled 
and hissed as if in demoniac fury, stretching up 
long fiery arms madly toward the sky. Busy fire- 
men were working with all their strength and skill, 
but the place was doomed ; the groups of specta- 
tors — men who had rushed out from their homes or 
places of business, and women with shawls thrown 
hastily over their heads and little children clinging 
to their skirts — could readily discern that. 


256 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


“ They’!] never stop that burning till it’s cinders 
and ashes,” said a voice near Mr. Vance — a woman’s 
voice. “ See how the flames shoot up !” 

“ Ay, it looks like some fiery devil reaching up 
to heaven to draw curses down upon itself — looks 
like what it is,” another answered — a man’s voice 
with an almost fierce excitement quivering in its 
strange, wild tones. "Think of what it has been 
all these years while it has stood so fair and still ! 
— how it has been manufacturing heartache, starva- 
tion, murder and every sin that can be named, and 
pouring them forth in a flood to desolate hearts and 
homes ! Strange that some whirlwind of wrath 
had not swept it away long ago — that others like 
it are still unscathed. How long? how long?” 

The bent form, the thin, worn face, with its frame 
of gray hair and dark, gleaming eyes, were plainly 
visible in the red glare that illumined the street. 
Mr. Vance recognized them, but he made no move- 
ment or sign, only dreamily, almost unconsciously, 
he pondered the words. Had it been such a hor- 
rible evil ? He had wanted to give it up and had 
been looking for the easiest way, and while he 
dallied and hesitated the choice had been taken 
from him. He had wanted to avoid any sacri- 
fice, but now the sacrifice was settled. 

One near him asked, 

“ Will the loss be much, I wonder? What was 
the insurance?” 

"I don’t know — heavily insured, I presume. 


CHANGES AND LETTERS. 


257 


Here’s Briggs. It’s in his line of business, and he 
may know something about it. — Will Yance lose 
much ?” 

“ Considerable, I should say — a pretty consider- 
able sum ; but then his loss is our gain,” replied 
Mr. Briggs, with cheerful resignation. “Yes, he 
was insured with us, and did the most foolish thing 
in the world, and strange, too, for a shrewd man 
of business like him — allowed his policy to run out 
a week ago.” 

Mr. Briggs was suddenly interrupted. His 
startling statement broke the spell under which Mr. 
Vance had been standing silent and motionless, 
and he hastily pushed his way through the group, 
unheeding the curious faces turned toward him, 
and laid his hand on the speaker’s arm. 

“What is that you are saying?” he asked, 
hoarsely. 

“You here, Mr. Yance? I thought you were 
out of town,” gasped Mr. Briggs, in surprise. 

“I returned to-night. What were you telling 
the people?” 

“ Ah ! yes. I was saying — Suppose we take 
a turn up the street,” said Mr. Briggs, drawing 
him away from the crowd and recovering in that 
moment his own equanimity. “ I was saying how 
very unfortunate it was that you allowed your in- 
surance with us to lapse.” 

“ But I did not ; I gave explicit orders — ” Mr. 
Yance paused and drew his hand across his forehead 
17 


258 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


as if to clear his brain. “ I overlooked the matter, 
strangely enough, when I went away — I always 
attend to such things myself — but I recollected it 
before I reached my destination, and telegraphed 
at once to my agent here. He replied that it 
should be attended to immediately. Afterward I 
wrote, repeating the order and charging him on no 
account to neglect it. There must be some mis- 
take.” 

“None on our part, sir,” replied Mr. Briggs, 
positively. “ He has not said one word to us on 
the subject. The fact is, I called at your store- 
room two or three times to see about it, and I either 
could not find him at all or I found him utterly 
unfit to talk business, and so concluded to wait 
until you came home. It is very unfortunate for 
you, but that is the way it stands.” 

A mingled groan and imprecation broke from 
George Vance’s lips as he drew his hand from his 
companion’s arm and turned again toward the fire 
that was so greedily devouring his property. How 
hungrily it licked it up ! How pitiless it was ! 
But even while he thought thus a careless voice 
said, 

“ Well, if we must have a fire, I don’t know of 
anything that can be better spared than this. It 
will be no great loss to the community.” 

The proprietor made his way close to the burn- 
ing building, in among the busy throng of firemen ; 
but there were no directions to give : nothing had 


CHANGES AND LETTERS. 


259 


been saved or could be saved. The fire had origi- 
nated in the store-room and was well under way 
before it was discovered, and the distillery had 
caught from that. A number of the men who had 
been employed in the manufactory were watching 
its conflagration. They had assured each other 
that Vance took such precious good care of his 
property that he would lose nothing; but when 
they saw his haggard face, it aroused something 
like pity. Cautiously, in answer to his questions, 
they explained that the agent left in charge had 
seized the occasion of his absence to indulge in 
a prolonged debauch, and the business had been 
allowed to take care of itself. How the fire origi- 
nated was unknown. 

The flames completed their work, leaving only 
blackened walls and smouldering masses of de- 
bris, and George Vance sought his home feeling 
that the fortune for which he had toiled so long 
was escaping from his grasp. 

It was seeking no haven of rest for him to re- 
turn to his splendid house. Word of the ruin that 
had been wrought had reached there before him, and 
his wife’s tears, questions and petulant reproaches 
were easy neither to soothe nor endure. When she 
learned, what Mr. Vance thought it useless to con- 
ceal, that the loss would be great, she viewed it as 
a personal wrong needlessly brought upon her: 

“ Oh dear ! I can’t understand it, I’m sure. 
What have I ever done that this should come upon 


260 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


me? Of course I disliked that dreadful distillery, 
because it was always suggesting things, but that 
was no reason why it should be burned up. It 
would have been better to sell it — far better. I’m 
surprised that you didn’t do it, George. You 
might have known how combustible it was. And 
then to think that you should have forgotten even 
for a day about that company — the very one where 
you were insured most heavily — and should have 
let it lapse, or whatever you call it ! A man of 
business like you ! It’s too astonishing ! And then 
you trusted a man that will drink to attend to 
things while you were gone, when I’ve advised you 
so often to get some entirely trustworthy and superior 
person. It seems to me that you might have had 
more regard for your family. It would be impos- 
sible for me to be poor, George; you must never 
think of such a thing. Do you suppose that is all 
the loss you will have ?” 

“ How can I tell ? The other company may fail 
or refuse to pay, and this house may burn down 
before morning,” he answered, with savage gloom- 
iness, throwing himself down wearily, worn in body 
and mind and exasperated by the ceaseless stream 
of questions and reproaches. 

The excitement and trouble of the night has- 
tened the result toward which months of care and 
overwork had been tending, and morning found 
him utterly unable to rise. A strange benumbing 
sensation had crept over him — a partial paralysis 


CHANGES AND LETTERS. 


261 


that rendered him helpless — and a long and serious 
illness followed. His business was left for others 
to arrange, with but little of his direction even, for 
there were weeks in which he could give it no 
coherent thought, and those others found the loss 
much greater than had been at first supposed. His 
words to his wife were more nearly realized than he 
could have dreamed possible when he so impatient- 
ly uttered them. The company whose insurance 
alone remained had not failed, indeed, but they 
claimed that the policy had been vitiated by con- 
verting certain parts of the building to other uses 
than those stated at the time of its insurance, 
thereby increasing the risk. 

Much argument and debate ensued, investigation 
and threats of lawsuit, but the matter was finally 
compromised at a considerable sacrifice of Mr. 
Vance’s first claim, so that but a small remnant 
of his wealth remained. 

While there were some who pitied him when 
these facts became generally known, there were 
others who viewed them as the direct visitation of 
the wrath of Heaven. They were, however, the 
natural outgrowth of the business — not so much a 
curse sent upon it as working out from it. What 
more natural than that an establishment dealing in 
that which rendered persons untrustworthy and unfit 
for business should have the same effect upon those 
engaged in it, and that, being unfit and untrust- 
worthy, they should sooner or later work it loss ? 


262 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


Was it not natural, too, that the man who was 
making his wealth by disregarding the welfare of 
society should find those whom he employed care- 
less of his welfare? Then, having so persistently 
weakened his health by his eager greed, was it any 
wonder that it failed utterly under this sudden 
strain ? Doubtless, God’s hand was in it all, yet 
George Vance was surely reaping but the first-fruits 
of the harvest he had sown. 

Slowly he recovered from his wearisome illness ; 
and when he had partially regained the use of his 
paralyzed limbs, he obeyed the directions his phy- 
sician had given so long before, and went abroad, 
taking his family with him. He left no proper- 
ty to be anxious about now; he had but a modest 
amount anywhere, and the great house was adver- 
tised for sale. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

WHAT THE YEARS UNFOLDED . 

ICK at last was free — pardoned a few months 
before the expiration of his sentence — and 
Lizzie, true to her purpose, went to him at 
once. She could go the more cheerfully 
because she left Mabel to fill her place at 
her uncle’s, and to succeed her in the position of 
teacher also. Though many tears were shed, little 
opposition was made to Lizzie’s departure. Perhaps 
the years had wrought some change in Mrs. Vance’s 
feelings, for she said, 

“ I can’t say that it isn’t what I’d want Sis to do 
if Ted or Kip were in Rick’s place, but it is hard 
to let you go.” 

The old farmhouse had grown dear and homelike 
and her place in it was that of a daughter, but 
Rick needed her the most, and she longed to give 
to his life all the help and comfort in her power. 

Rick did need her. He had urged her not to 
sacrifice her pleasant home and life among friends 
for him, telling her, sadly, that he could surround 
her with no society nor offer her anything but quiet 

263 



264 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


loneliness. But that sentence only drew her the 
more surely to him, since the life he described must 
be his own. Every line of his worn face showed 
that he needed her, and its sudden lighting up 
told, too, how glad he was to have her. 

He had rented a few rooms in a quiet street, 
and they furnished them simply, yet prettily, for 
Lizzie had carefully accumulated a fund for this 
very time and freely bestowed both means and skill 
to make the place as bright and homelike as possible. 
Her success brought the quick tears to her eyes as 
she read it in Rick’s look when he walked through 
the rooms, examining looping of curtains and 
hanging of pictures, and pausing before the dain- 
tily-draped tea-table. 

u How strange it seems, Lizzie ! — so sweet and 
strange that I can scarcely believe it is not all a 
dream,” he said, slowly. 

His face had lost every trace of youthful bright- 
ness ; it was sad, but patient and strong. The 
old vivacity of manner had vanished also, and 
he talked but little, the result, perhaps, of such 
long-enforced silence and solitude. He studied 
much, but every evening he brought his books to 
the table where Lizzie was sitting ; and as his eyes 
wandered now and then from the printed page 
around the cheerful room and back to her, busy 
with her needlework, they wore a look of content 
that was to her a perpetual compensation for all 
that she missed. 


WHAT THE YEARS UNFOLDED. 265 


She had procured a cabinet-organ and often sang 
and played for him ; but though he listened, well 
pleased, he never sang with her, as she had hoped 
he would, as he had done in the old days at home. 
She shrank from any apparent notice of the changes 
in him, and she could not tell him that she missed 
and longed for his voice. But one evening she ven- 
tured upon an old-time favorite — one that they 
had often sung together. The familiar air and 
words wrought their spell ; Rick came and stood 
beside her, and presently his voice joined hers. It 
was only for a single verse ; then, under the flood 
of old memories, it faltered and broke, but Lizzie 
held bravely on ; and when she struck the notes of 
an old hymn their mother had loved, he was calmer 
again and ready to sing with her. Thereafter she 
seldom missed his voice. Many a time did she win 
him back to hope and peace through the words of 
prayer or praise they sang together. 

For Rick had his times of deep depression — it 
could scarcely be otherwise — hours when the dark 
past haunted him, flooding his soul with remorse, 
and when only the thought of One who had ac- 
counted his life worth redeeming and to whom it 
now belonged saved him from despair or strength- 
ened him for duty. Fortunately, he had plenty 
of work. The physician who had been his stead- 
fast friend had a large practice, not in the prison 
alone, but in various asylums and hospitals, and to 
these he introduced his assistant, relying upon 


266 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


him more and more and manifesting an increasing 
respect for his opinion, while he congratulated him- 
self daily upon having secured his services. 

“ When that fellow gets an idea in his head, it’s 
not to be laughed at, however it looks at first,” he 
said to Lizzie one day. “ He is sure to keep at it 
until he works it out into something sensible and 
practical.” 

One line of study held for Rick the deepest in- 
terest and drew the most intense thought, research, 
careful analysis and experiment — the effect of alco- 
holic stimulant upon the human system. 

“For inebriety is not only a vice, but a disease 
— the latter usually induced by the former, it is 
true, but none the less on that account a positive 
physical malady,” he said to Lizzie. “ Brain, 
nerves and tissues are all affected with the poison. 
The man needs no arguments to convince him of 
the evil and madness of his course — he is more 
fully persuaded than any other can be; and yet his 
appetite is like some demon that he is powerless to 
resist. Ah, Lizzie! no one can know but those 
who have suffered it. Such cases seem almost 
hopeless.” 

“ Except that the Master now, as of old, casteth 
out devils,” Lizzie suggested, softly. 

“True, and heals diseases also; but it is none 
the less his work when the blessing is sent throuedi 
human means and human skill. There should be' 
more medical resources for such than there are. 


WHAT THE YEARS UNFOLDED. 267 


There must be ways of more efficient help than 
have yet been learned.” 

For these he searched and studied, filling all his 
leisure-time and toiling so indefatigably that Liz- 
zie sometimes protested : 

“You will wear yourself out, Rick.” 

“No; I think not. Hard work of this kind is 
rest to me, and luxury too and then he added, 
with his grave smile, “One sentence of St. Paul's 
is always coming to me : I am debtor. I feel my- 
self debtor to humanity.” 

He did not say that he felt this debt to all 
human life because of the life he had taken — that 
he longed to bring health and help to the wounded 
and fallen and restore them to usefulness and hap- 
piness as the only reparation possible for all the 
suffering and loss he had wrought; but Lizzie un- 
derstood. He was successful, too, becoming more 
and more so as the years passed — quiet years, in 
which he was steadily advancing in knowledge and 
skill, and slowly gaining in respect and influence 
also, for men were more ready than he had deem- 
ed possible to veil with silence the mad crime of 
his youth, and to accept him as they found him 
then — a quiet, studious man of no inconsiderable 
talent, devoted to his profession and rising in it. 

He had casual, daily intercourse with many, yet 
but little society except that of a few friends who 
knew his history. Other he might have had, but 
he shrank from it, and Lizzie was content with his 


268 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


narrow circle. After a time, as he prospered, they 
abandoned their rented rooms and bought a home 
in the suburbs — a pretty place with pleasant grounds 
around it. 

“ And now that we have room enough and you 
can have all the assistance you need, will it annoy 
you if I bring some of my ‘ experiments/ as Dr. 
Lee calls them, here, Lizzie?” he asked, with earn- 
est eyes studying her face — “ some of those pecu- 
liar patients who seem to be falling more and 
more into my hands of late ; those who long to 
forsake the vice of inebriety, but are powerless un- 
der it.” 

“ Surely not. Oh, Rick, if I can only help you, 
I shall be so glad to do it !” 

“ If I can but help others as you have helped 
me — ” Rick left the sentence unfinished. 

“ But, Rick,” she said, thoughtfully, one day, 
“ do you not think this viewing intemperance as a 
disease may have a tendency to lessen the sense of 
its sinfulness in those addicted to it?” 

“ Certainly not,, if they have any clear under- 
standing of it. Sin is none the less sin because it 
brings upon itself a fearful punishment. And this 
vice is all the more to be dreaded because there 
comes a time when it is master and the man its 
slave.” 

After that there was often one of Rick’s patients 
quartered at the cottage, then two or three at once, 
until, at last, it was never without them, and so 


WHAT THE YEARS UNFOLDED. 269 


grew, without premeditation on the part of its 
owners, into a private hospital and asylum. 

In these cases Lizzie took deep interest. Her 
loving heart and willing hands, filled and busy so 
long, could not be content to be empty or idle, and 
her life grew full and sweet when she found that 
she could really aid her brother in his lifework, as 
well as make a home for him. 

About this time some papers of his upon this 
subject to which he had given so much thought be- 
gan to attract attention. They were published 
anonymously at first; but giving rise to discus- 
sion and question, he avowed their authorship and 
wrote still more earnestly and fully. Attention was 
drawn to his practice, and in a few months the 
little asylum became overcrowded and numerous 
applications for admittance were refused. 

“You are in for it, Chester; don’t you see you 
are ? Take a larger place, where you can do your 
best,” urged his old friend, Dr. Lee ; and the bro- 
ther and sister began seriously to consider the pro- 
priety of enlarging their sphere of operations. 

Before they had made any arrangements, how- 
ever, a letter was received from L informing 

Rick of the purposed establishment of a home for 
inebriates there, and expressing very urgently a de- 
sire that he should take charge of it. 

“That would be living at home again. How 
pleasant !” Lizzie exclaimed, but the next moment 
she regretted the words, remembering how many 


270 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


painful associations might cling in Rick’s thought 
around the city which had been the home of his 
boyhood. 

But he did not seem to consider that. He had 
never made any attempt at concealing his past; 
he had simply gone on his way, neither parading 
nor hiding it, too earnestly engaged in what lie was 
to give much heed to what people might think him. 
And for associations, seventeen years of absence 
make almost any old city in our ever-changing 
land seem a new one. Rick pondered only the 
questions of duty and usefulness. Meanwhile, other 
letters followed, urging still more strongly his ac- 
ceptance of the position, and finally a delegation 
from the gentlemen interested in the project came 
to consult with him personally and overbear, if 
possible, all opposition. 

His objections had been only to leaving the work 
where he was ; but as that had been assuming 
more and more the one character — the same to 
which the new offer called him, affording increased 
facilities and a larger field — he ultimately yielded 
to the wishes so warmly expressed, and consented 
to go. By the pang of parting Lizzie learned how 
dear her home had grown, yet the tears that filled 
her eyes were grateful ones as she thought of all 
her answered prayers, of the blessings far beyond 
her hopes that had come with the years until she 
saw Rick, as now, honored and useful, with this 
door to further helpfulness and success open before 


WHAT THE YEARS UNFOLDED. 271 


him. Surely she had cause for her murmured 
thanksgiving : 

“ ‘ Not one thing hath failed of all the good things 
which the Lord your God spoke concerning you; 
all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing 
hath failed thereof/ ” 

The home had been fitted and prepared for them 
as far as could be done without their presence. 
They had known little concerning it except that it 
was commodious, in a good location, and had been 
deemed the most suitable place that could be se- 
lected ; but when, in the pleasant twilight of a 
June evening, the carriage which had borne them 
from the depot stopped before it, both recognized 
the building — enlarged and somewhat changed to 
meet its new requirements — the stately mansion 
that had once belonged to George Vance. Passing 
through many hands, it happened fitly at last that 
it became an asylum for the class whose money had 
built it. 

“ Dr. and Miss Chester have come,” a servant 
announced, respectfully, as they were ushered 
through the wide, handsome hall to a pleasant 
private parlor beyond. The words sounded 
strangely to Lizzie, but the next moment she found 
herself in the centre of a little circle gathered to 
welcome them, to whom she was only “ Lizzie.” 

Uncle and Aunt Vance were there from the farm, 
growing such old people now that they seldom left 
home, but they considered this a grand and special 


272 


OLD PORTMANTEA U. 


occasion, and had made an extra effort. They had 
long since forgiven Rick, so does success avail 
with our weak humanity as a substitute for the 
charity that “ covereth a multitude of sins.” Yet 
— let us be charitable also — the passing years had 
perhaps WTOUght more of sympathy and tenderness 
in these hearts, teaching them something of their 
own weakness, and through the mercy bestowed 
upon them something of the Lord’s yearning pity 
for “ those who are out of the way.” 

Certainly they offered a heartfelt welcome to 
both brother and sister that evening, and Lizzie, 
who had known from them so much of love and 
kindness, was overjoyed at the meeting. Joe and 
Mabel, too, were there together, for Joe, in return 
for the childish gift, had since bestowed upon Mabel 
another ring, a trifle larger and more precious than 
the coral, and won the entire fulfillment of her 
promise to be his “ folks.” Mrs. Halroyd’s sweet 
face and glistening eyes added their greeting also. 
To Lizzie that evening was a rare and happy re- 
union, but to Rick it was even more. 

Under the most favorable auspices the new home 
was opened, and it grew in prosperity and useful- 
ness. Rick had now ample opportunity and means 
for carrying into effect many of his long-cherished 
schemes for the benefit of those whom he so desired 
to aid; and as he saw many of these successful, 
strengthening the weak and tempted and tending to 
restore happiness to lives and homes, his own life 


WHAT THE YEARS UNFOLDED. 273 


grew richer and more content. Few indeed of 
those who met and talked with the grave, earnest, 
thoughtful man remembered the story of his youth : 
he only never forgot. Lizzie, seeing how his opin- 
ion was sought and his judgment respected, felt not 
a little sisterly pride; but when a breath of this 
found expression, Rick shook his head with a faint 
reflection of the old sadness in his deep eyes : 

“ No, Lizzie. Of my life I made shameful 
wreck : the life I now live is His who alone can 
honor it or make it useful.” 

Mrs. Halroyd was with them often. One of the 
great inducements with Lizzie to removal had been 
that it would secure to her the companionship, ad- 
vice and assistance of her friend, and she enjoyed 
them to the full. AriePs interest in the work was 
deep and abiding, and to her they owed many val- 
uable suggestions and much of the success of the 
evening-receptions, which, with the music and read- 
ings, became to the inmates so pleasant and profit- 
able a features of the institution. Through her, also, 
Phrony’s permanent services were secured ; with 
her olden predilection for cheerfulness unabated, 
that little woman speedily became a favorite with 
every one about the place. 

Lizzie had no lack of society now. She was 
brought by her position in daily contact with the 
truest and best — those whose hearts and hands were 
full of the Master’s work. These helped and 
strengthened her, yet not more than did that other 
18 


274 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


class who needed her and kept her aims and sym- 
pathies broad and true. Not one of the visions of 
her girlhood would have pictured such a life as 
this, yet she was happy in it. He who had chosen 
it for her had also fitted her for it. 

Among those who often came to her, seeking 
brightness and encouragement for her own path, was 
Lena Vance, still slender and suffering often from 
ill-health, but grown into a far more intelligent and 
gracious womanhood than her early years had 
promised. The years of travel had done much for 
her mentally and spiritually — more than they had 
done for hei father’s health; for, though partially 
recovered, he would never again be the vigorous 
man he had once been. 

He had returned from abroad, and purchasing 
an interest in some woolen-mills situated near the 
city was engaged in manufacturing in a small way. 
He was withheld by his broken health from any 
new venture or daring speculation, but was receiv- 
ing sufficient income to support his family comfort- 
ably, if Mrs. Vance could have considered any- 
thing comfortable that was not also the height of 
luxury ; but she did not. She hoarded the relics 
of her former grandeur and still frequented gay 
gatherings as much as it was possible for one to 
do who could not return such invitations in kind. 
She cramped the family resources to accomplish a 
yearly trip to some fashionable resort, and lamented 
equally over their lost wealth and Lena’s lack of in- 


WHAT THE YEARS UNFOLDED. 275 


terest in her “ efforts to keep up a respectable ap- 
pearance.” 

Lena’s one great resource of enjoyment and em- 
ployment was her music. Advantages and culture 
in this direction had been unstinted in her earlier 
years, and afterward her own desire had urged her 
to all improvement in her power. She had secured 
a class of music-pupils; and though her mother 
was as greatly shocked at this undertaking as 
Maria had once been at Phrony’s labors, Lena 
found it both pleasant and profitable, and the small 
but independent revenue it brought her valuable 
both to herself and others. Her father admired 
what he called her “ spunk ” in attempting such a 
thing w T ith her always delicate health. It was per- 
haps the first thing that had awakened in him any 
admiration for his daughter, and the effect was 
w T holesome. He began to consult her and gradual- 
ly to care for and find comfort in her society. He 
scarcely knew how much he was learning to love 
her, but he began dimly to comprehend that her 
care and affection were making for him what he 
had never really known — a home. 

One other old-time acquaintance came to the 
inebriates’ home soon after Dr. Chester took charge 
of ;t — Old Portmanteau. He had wandered there 
at first, scarcely knowing the nature of the institu- 
tion or understanding its aims; but when Lizzie 
recognized and welcomed him, purchasing a number 
of his books and explaining that their work there 


276 


OLD PORTMANTEAU. 


was but a different branch of his own, the old 
man’s face brightened and his deepest interest was 
awakened. They had called him “ old ” twenty 
years before, when his appearance had been more 
the result of care and sorrow than of age, but it 
was different now; the white hair, the dimming 
eyes and the fast-failing strength told an unmistak- 
able story. Still, he clung to the vocation that had 
so long been his life. 

After his first visit he came often to the home, 
and they soon persuaded him to make it his stop- 
ping-place when he was in the city. At Lizzie’s 
urgent request he brought his few effects there — 
very few they were — and she provided a quiet room 
and furnished it with every comfort. His home- 
comings were irregular, but they grew more and 
more frequent, until at last, one stormy day, he 
came in wearily and went out no more. 

He lay for hours peacefully still, not suffering, 
but with fast-ebbing strength, understanding as 
clearly as did Dr. Chester, who had let his fingers 
fall from the failing pulse and silently turned away, 
what was coming. 

“ Over the last hill and across the last valley — 
the last bit of road traveled ; there is no more now 
between me and the end,” he said to Lizzie. 

Her eyes were full of tears; but Mrs. Halroyd 
answered impulsively out of her own full heart : 

“ I give you joy !” 

His eyes brightened then : 


WHAT THE YEARS UNFOLDED. 277 


“ Ay, that’s the word! Joy! For this means 
rest for the wanderer, home for the homeless and 
kindred for the lonely and friendless. At last ‘ He 
setteth the solitary in families ’ that shall never be 
broken up.” 

With the smile still on his lips he fell asleep, 
and so passed gently into that other slumber more 
peaceful and profound. 

Unknown and nameless still he had passed away. 
They had familiarly called him “ uncle” in these 
later months, forgetting through long use what 
they remembered now — that he had really borne 
for them no name. A search through the leath- 
ern portmanteau — worn, battered and old through 
much hard usage and exposure to many storms — • 
revealed only the simple initials “ J. L. C.” These 
they carved upon the plain stone with which they 
marked his resting-place, and, underneath, the 
words which he had held as at once his commis- 
sion and his reward : 

“ Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters.” 


THE END. 










' 

. 
























































4 







































































































\ 
















